US President Donald Trump has shot down an offer from Russian President Vladimir Putin of a voluntary extension of the New START nuclear missile deal that expired this week, opening the way to a new arms race.

Trump said on February 5 that he wants negotiators from both countries to sit down and hammer out a new version of the START missile deal agreement, calling the old treaty “badly negotiated”.

Previously, Axios, citing sources, reported that Russia and the US had agreed to adhere to key provisions of the New START Treaty for another six months after its expiration. While the treaty formally expired on February 5, the parties are discussing temporary compliance with its key provisions and parallel negotiations on a new agreement, during this week’s talks in the UAE.

An extension to the last Cold War missile control deal, the START missile treaty, was signed by former US president Joe Biden in his first week in office in January 2021 with Putin and was hailed as a major breakthrough at the time. However, rising tensions over Ukraine’s potential Nato membership killed off calls for the other major Cold War-era missile agreements to be reactivated and Russia suspended its participation in the START deal in 2022 after the war in Ukraine started. Now that the New START deal has expired all the Cold War security infrastructure has been dismantled starting with former President George W Bush’ decision to unilaterally withdraw from the ABM treaty (Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty) in 2002 through to Trump’s refusal to renew the New START deal.

“Rather than extend ‘NEW START’ (A badly negotiated deal by the US that, aside from everything else, is being grossly violated), we should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved, and modernized Treaty that can last long into the future,” Trump said on his social media network, Truth Social.

Trump declared on February 5 that the US is the most powerful country in the world, and that he completely rebuilt the American military during his first term, "including new and many modernized nuclear weapons."

"I also added a space force, and now I continue to rebuild our military to levels never seen before. We are even adding battleships that are 100 times more powerful than those that sailed the seas during World War II - the Iowa, the Missouri, the Alabama, and others," the US president wrote on social media.

He also said that he had prevented nuclear wars in the world, in particular "between Pakistan and India, Iran and Israel, and Russia and Ukraine." Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that the world was on the brink of World War III and nuclear war, but thanks to his efforts, these wars did not happen.

However, he also instructed the Pentagon to immediately resume nuclear weapons testing in October although no tests are currently planned. The last confirmed nuclear weapons test was conducted by North Korea on September 3, 2017. No other country has conducted a nuclear test since then after the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) was signed in 1996.

The first START agreement was signed by the US and the former Soviet Union in 1991. The treaty was revived by former US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in 2010 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, limiting each country to a maximum of 1,550 nuclear warheads and 700 missiles and bombers deployed and ready for use.

One of the sticking points has been Trump’s insistence that China be included in any new deal. Russia and the US each have over 5,000 nuclear missiles each, despite the 1,500 cap included in the START treaty, while China has 600, but has been rapidly adding to its arsenal. Beijing has refused to participate in the talks.

China has always emphasized that efforts toward arms control and disarmament must keep "global strategic stability" in mind, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian. "China's nuclear capabilities are on a completely different scale than those of the US and Russia," he added.

Despite suspending the deal, the Kremlin has kept the door open to restarting talks and Russia has been abiding by many of the conditions in the treaty, despite the fact that it no longer formally recognises any restrictions.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia will continue with a “responsible, thorough approach to stability when it comes to nuclear weapons”, adding that “of course, it will be guided primarily by its national interests”, Reuters reports.

However, during the trilateral Ukraine war peace talks at the 12-day-long Abu Dhabi meeting that kicked off on January 24, the US and Russia agreed to reestablish highest level contacts between their militaries for the first time in more than four years to avoid making any “mistakes or misinterpretations” in the vacuum of security agreements that now exists.

High-level military communication was suspended in late 2021, as tension over Ukraein built up culminating in an eight-point list  of demands issued by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs topped with a demand that Ukraine never join Ukraine. The war broke out three months later after those demands were ignored.

The restored communication channel “will provide a consistent military-to-military contact as the parties continue to work towards a lasting peace,” the US European Command said in a statement following meetings in Abu Dhabi. US General Alexus Grynkewich, who is the commander in Europe of both US and Nato forces, was in Abu Dhabi for the talks.

"Maintaining dialogue between militaries is an important factor in global stability and peace, which can only be achieved through strength, and provides a means for increased transparency and de-escalation," European Command said in a statement.

Russia has been rattling its nuclear sabre frequently during the four-year-long Ukraine war as a very effective way to limit Western aid to Ukraine. Analysts have also been unsettled by last year’s short war between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, who worry about the erosion of taboos and treaties meant to restrain the use of nuclear weapons in conflict. As bne IntelliNews argued in an op-ed, one of the consequences of the Ukraine war is that it will promote nuclear proliferation as the Ukraine war has shown Nato won’t directly engage with or openly support any proxy if they are fighting against a nuclear weapon-enabled state. For example, the 50 warheads North Korea is believed to have are an effective deterrent against any attack by a Western power.

As bne IntelliNews has reported, the Kremlin remains extremely keen to restart the missile control deals as it wants to avoid another costly arms race at a time when its economy and technological development is constrained by sanctions.

The next meeting of delegations within the framework of the peace talks will most likely take place in the United States, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on February 5, Interfax reports. .

"Today there was a report from our negotiating team after two days of meetings and negotiations in the Emirates – with the American side and with the Russian side. I am expecting the team in Kyiv for a full report, many aspects cannot be discussed by phone. From what can already be said, the next meetings are planned in the near future. Most likely, in America," Zelenskiy said in an evening address on Thursday.