The Kremlin warned on Tuesday that the absence of any treaty-based framework limiting US and Russian nuclear arsenals is creating what spokesman Dmitry Peskov called an "extremely dangerous" situation, and said talks on strategic stability and arms reduction must resume urgently.

"This is an extremely important issue. For the first time in a long while, the world has been left without this treaty-based legal framework," Peskov told reporters, according to reports of his Tuesday briefing. He said the coming negotiations would be complex and lengthy, which is why Moscow wants them started early.

The New START treaty, signed in 2010 and extended in 2021, was the last remaining bilateral agreement limiting the two largest nuclear arsenals. It capped each side at 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads and 700 deployed delivery systems, and provided for transparency and on-site verification measures that have now lapsed. The treaty expired in February without an extension or replacement. Russia had proposed maintaining the warhead caps for another year if Washington reciprocated, an initiative that, according to the Kremlin's account, went unanswered — that is Moscow's version, and Washington has not confirmed it in these reports.

The United States has taken a different position on the shape of any future deal: the Trump administration has insisted that a new arms-control agreement should include China, whose arsenal is far smaller but growing, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in February that Washington would push for trilateral talks with Beijing and Moscow. On Monday, President Donald Trump expressed openness to discussing nuclear disarmament at a potential meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the upcoming APEC summit in China, saying the leaders would have nuclear weapons and denuclearisation to talk about, alongside trade.

Peskov also said Moscow cannot overlook the nuclear arsenals of European NATO members, notably Britain and France, in any future strategic-stability discussions — a long-standing Russian position that complicates any simple two-way formula. Separately, Peskov said Russia hopes a meeting between President Putin and US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will take place soon, and, as Reuters reported from the same briefing, he acknowledged that a final Ukraine settlement is impossible without the participation of someone in Kyiv prepared to take responsibility for it.

No date for renewed arms-control negotiations has been announced by either side, and the claims and positions above are each side's stated positions, not agreed facts.

Sources: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov's Tuesday remarks as reported by NationScope and Voice of Russia; Reuters reporting via The CSR Journal (Peskov on Ukraine participation and the call for urgent nuclear-stability talks).