Moscow and Washington are not engaged in any contacts on extending the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the Russian Embassy in the United States said on Friday in a statement denying a recent report by The Washington Post.
The embassy’s press office said via Facebook that the report’s claim that Russia and the US are now negotiating the future of the New START agreement “causes confusion.”
The article also claimed that the embassy “did not immediately respond to a request for comment,” when in fact the embassy never received any requests from The Washington Post, the statement said.
New START went into force in 2011 and covers a 10-year period with the possibility of a five-year extension. The agreement limits the number of deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, nuclear armed bombers and nuclear warheads.