President Biden said Wednesday that he hasn’t received any indication that Moscow is changing its nuclear posture after Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended participation in a treaty with the U.S. aimed at preventing nuclear-arms expansion.
Putin’s decision to temporarily leave the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Arms, or New START, was unwise, Biden said in an interview with ABC News anchor David Muir, but it doesn’t necessarily reflect a new willingness on Russia’s part to deploy nuclear weapons against its geopolitical adversaries.
“It’s a big mistake to do that. Not very responsible. . . . But I don’t read into that that he’s thinking of using nuclear weapons or anything like that,” Biden said.
“I think we’re less safe when we walk away from arms control agreements that are very much in both parties’ interests and the world’s interest. But I’ve not seen anything, we’ve not seen anything that, where there’s a change in his posture and what they’re doing,” he added. “The idea that somehow this means they’re thinking of using nuclear weapons . . . intercontinental ballistic missiles, there’s no evidence of that.”
Putin’s move, which he said was not a full withdrawal, came a day after Biden made a surprise visit to Ukraine, which is still fighting against Russian invasion. The U.S. has sent significant military assistance to the war-torn country, with the White House authorizing a $2.2 billion military aid package earlier this month that includes funding for special advanced long-range rockets.
Speaking to Russia’s federal legislature Tuesday, Putin criticized the West for allegedly provoking Russia, adding that it would be prepared to conduct nuclear-weapons tests if the U.S. does so.
“They want to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on us and try to get to our nuclear facilities at the same time,” Putin said.
The treaty, signed by President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, in 2010, capped the number of strategic nuclear warheads, missiles, and bombers both countries can deploy. Last February, Biden and Putin extended it for another five years.