February 6, 2026 | 04:22 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that the expiration of the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia marks a “grave moment” for international peace and security.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) officially expired on February 5, ending 15 years of limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals.
“The expiration of the New START Treaty, as of midnight today, marks a grave moment for international peace and security,” Guterres said in a statement on Wednesday, as reported by Anadolu.
“For the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States of America, the two States that possess the overwhelming majority of the global stockpile of nuclear weapons.”
Guterres said decades of bilateral nuclear arms control between Washington and Moscow had helped maintain strategic stability, prevent nuclear catastrophes, and reduce the risk of deadly miscalculations.
From the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) to New START, he noted, successive agreements had led to the reduction of thousands of nuclear weapons and strengthened global security.
“This dissolution of decades of achievement could not come at a worse time,” Guterres said, warning that “the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is the highest in decades.”
He cautioned that the absence of verified strategic constraints could further undermine global security at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions and rapid technological developments.
Despite the setback, Guterres said the situation should serve as a turning point for renewed global arms control efforts.
“The world now looks to the Russian Federation and the United States to translate words into action,” he said, urging both countries to return to negotiations and work toward a replacement agreement that “restores verifiable limits, reduces risks, and strengthens our collective security.”
The first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1991.
New START was signed by the US and Russia in Prague on April 8, 2010, and entered into force on February 5, 2011. It replaced START I, which expired in 2009, and the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) signed in 2002, according to the US-based Arms Control Association.
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