For Immediate Release: August 13, 2025
Media Contacts: Daryl Kimball, Executive Director (202-463-8270 x107); Xiaodon Liang, Senior Policy Analyst (202-463-8270 x113); Thomas Countryman, Chair of the Board and former Asst. Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation (via 202-463-8270 x113)
(Washington, D.C.)— U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in Anchorage, Alaska, this week for a snap-summit that will focus primarily on options for ending Russia’s brutal and illegal war on Ukraine. There are also indications, however, the two leaders may also discuss the uncertain future of the U.S.-Russian strategic nuclear relationship.
After the Aug. 6 meeting between Trump’s personal envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Putin in Moscow that set up the Alaska summit, Putin’s advisor Yuri Ushakov said that the two main topics discussed were “the Ukrainian crisis” and “the prospect of possible development of strategic cooperation between the United States and Russia.”
Ushakov’s comment refers to the fact that the last remaining treaty limiting the two countries’ nuclear arsenals, the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), will expire on February 5, 2026. The treaty has been extended once and cannot be extended again. No talks are yet underway on a follow-on agreement.
Two weeks earlier, on July 25, Trump was asked by a reporter from Russia’s TASS news agency about the prospects for broader nuclear arms reductions between the United States and Russia after New START expires. In response, Trump said, “I would like to see it. We are starting to work on that.”
“That is a big problem for the world, when you take off nuclear restrictions that’s a big problem,” Trump added.
If New START expires with no successor arrangement, Washington and Moscow could, in theory, increase their arsenals beyond New START limits on deployed warheads (1,550) and deployed delivery systems (700) by uploading more warheads on existing long-range missiles or deploying more missiles and bombers.
Experts at the Arms Control Association and others have noted that given the fact that negotiating a new, formal treaty would take time, it is vital that Trump and Putin reach an interim agreement to continue to respect the current strategic nuclear weapons limits until a new, more comprehensive framework deal can be achieved between the U.S and Russia. Failure to do so risks the first buildup of U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons in more than 35 years.
The Alaska summit provides an opportunity to pose probing questions for both leaders and their senior teams on their respective plans for talks on how to manage the two countries’ delicate and dangerous nuclear balance of terror.
These include:
1. Plans for nuclear arms talks: “As both presidents are aware, the last remaining U.S.-Russian bilateral nuclear arms control treaty will expire in about six months. President Trump has expressed an interest in further talks with Russia on strategic nuclear arms control and on July 25 President Trump said ‘when you take off nuclear restrictions that’s a big problem for the world.’
Q: Have you discussed how each side seeks to address this challenge, and will each of you agree to continue to respect current nuclear limits while your teams begin negotiations on a follow-on agreement?”
2. The impact of strategic missile defense: “For decades, U.S. and Russian leaders have recognized the ‘interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and strategic defensive arms’ because strategic missile defenses can upset the nuclear balance and lead to offensive buildups.
President Trump, you have recently announced plans to expand U.S. missile defenses to try to counter all missile threats, not just from North Korea, but also from Russian and Chinese strategic weapons. President Putin has expressed deep concern about those plans.
Q: A question for each of you: do you intend to take up this issue in future talks and will you seek new solutions to address mutual concerns about missile threats and missile defenses?”
3. Options for reducing the risks of nuclear miscalculation: “In 1984 President Reagan first said that ‘A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The only value in our two nations possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they will never be used. But then would it not be better to do away with them entirely?’
In 2022, Russia, the United States, China, France, and the U.K. also issued a joint statement declaring that ‘a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought.’
Q: Do both of you continue to agree that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought?
Q: If so, how might you work with each other and with other nuclear-armed states to formalize that statement, for instance by updating and implementing the 1973 U.S.-Soviet agreement on the “Prevention of Nuclear War” that requires the two countries to refrain from nuclear threats and, in times of increased risk of nuclear conflict, “immediately enter into urgent consultations with each other and make every effort to avert this risk.”