Russia will pull out of a key nuclear treaty, President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.
During his state-of-the-union address, Putin said the Kremlin will withdraw from New START, a treaty that placed limits on the number of nuclear warheads that the U.S. and Russia could possess.
- Putin blamed the West for fuelling the war in Ukraine and warned that Russia has put strategic nuclear weapons systems on combat duty.
- He claimed, without evidence, that some people in Washington want to resume nuclear tests and said Russia will make preparations to follow suit.
- Russian state media websites went offline while broadcasting Putin's speech to the country's houses of Parliament.
- The state-run RIA Novosti news agency blamed the disruption on a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.
- Russia and the U.S. collectively hold 90% of the world's nuclear warheads.
- Signed in 2010, the New START treaty was the last arms control pact between the U.S. and Russia, and limited each country to 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads.
