US suspends nuclear information sharing with Russia

New START, which was reinstated early in the Biden administration, caps the number of deployed nuclear warheads at 1,550 and places other limits on the number of nuclear-capable bombers and launchers.

But after Russia recently declared it would no longer abide by the treaty and stopped sharing information with the United States about its stockpiles, the Biden administration had continued to follow the pact until now.

“We haven’t received any daily notifications from them since then,” Plumb said.

While Moscow has suspended all participation in the treaty, the Biden administration has decided to withhold only the notification that was due at the end of this month, a large data dump that happens twice a year. The United States continues to share positioning information with Russia on a daily basis.

National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in an email that Russia’s suspension of the treaty was “legally invalid” and is in addition to “existing violations of the New START treaty by Moscow”. Accordingly, as a legal countermeasure to encourage Russia to return to compliance with the treaty, the United States will also not provide its semi-annual data update to Russia.

However, Moscow continues to provide information about its nuclear stockpile to the United States under other arms control treaties.

It’s unclear whether the US refusal to share information will be repeated in the next scheduled exchange in six months, as the matter remains under review with the administration, Watson said.

During Monday’s meeting between diplomats from the two countries, “Russia replied that it would not provide this information”, he continued. “And so, as a diplomatic countermeasure, the United States will not provide this information.

“We will continue to consider what other diplomatic countermeasures are appropriate,” he added, “and what we are trying to do is balance both the response to Russia’s irresponsible behavior and continuing to demonstrate what we believe. [what] the action of a responsible nuclear power should be.