Russia suspends US inspections of its nuclear weapons arsenal

A Russian RS-24 Yars nuclear missile seen in Moscow in 2020. Russia has suspended the New Start treaty, which allows mutual inspection of US and Russia nuclear weapons. Photograph: Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA

Russia has suspended an arrangement that allowed US and Russian inspectors to visit each other’s nuclear weapons sites under the 2010 New Start treaty, in a new blow to arms control.

Mutual inspections had been suspended as a health precaution since the start of the Covid pandemic, but a foreign ministry statement on Monday added another reason Russia is unwilling to restart them. It argued that US sanctions imposed because of the invasion of Ukraine stopped Russian inspectors travelling to the US.