Russia ready for 'new reality' without ANY nuclear arms control limits as key peace treaty set to expire in just days

The Kremlin's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees arms control issues, said: "This is a new moment, a new reality, we are ready for it."

Mr Ryabkov was speaking during a visit to Beijing for "strategic stability consultations."

New START, which caps the number of deployed strategic warheads at 1,550, was signed in 2010.

President Donald Trump had indicated in an interview with the New York Times he will let the treaty expire.

However, he has not formally responded to a Russian proposal to keep observing the treaty's missile and warhead limits for one more year to allow time to work out what to do after the pact expires.

Mr Ryabkov continued: "The lack of an answer is also an answer."

A series of deals crafted after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis to reduce the dangers of nuclear war has gradually unravelled, with confrontation growing between Moscow and the West over Ukraine and the US concerned about China.

The US has suggested China, the world's third largest nuclear power by warheads, should join arms control talks. Beijing has shown no willingness to do so.

Former US President Barack Obama, who signed the New Start treaty in 2010 with then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, urged the US Congress to intervene.

Mr Obama said: "If Congress doesn’t act, the last nuclear arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia will expire."

Mr Medvedev, who now sits as Deputy Chairman of Russia's Security Council, has warned of the danger, suggesting it would speed up the "Doomsday Clock".

The 60-year-old is a close ally of Vladimir Putin, and portrayed himself as a moderniser when president from 2008 to 2012.

He said: "I don't want to say that this (letting the treaty expire) immediately means a catastrophe and a nuclear war will begin, but it should still alarm everyone."

Mr Medvedev added arms control treaties played a crucial role not just in limiting the number of warheads but also as a way to verify intentions and to ensure some element of trust between major nuclear powers.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia and the United States have repeatedly replaced and updated the Cold War-era treaties that limited the so-called strategic weapons they aim at each other's cities and bases.

The 2010 treaty caps the number of deployed strategic warheads at 1,550 on each side, with no more than 700 systems to deliver them from land, sea or air, by intercontinental ballistic missile, submarine-launched missile or heavy bomber.

Since then, Russia has developed new nuclear-capable systems, including the Burevestnik cruise missile, the hypersonic Oreshnik and the Poseidon torpedo, all of which fall outside New START's framework.

President Trump has announced plans for a space-based "Golden Dome" missile defence system that Moscow sees as an attempt to shift the strategic balance.

Franklin Miller, a member of the bipartisan Congressional commission, said the threats from Russia and China require an increase in deployed US strategic nuclear warheads.

He said: "We now have to be able to deter Russia and China simultaneously.

"The force that the treaty confined the US to in 2010 is not sufficient to address Russia and China together."

White House weapons requirements should increase, although "not radically, not monumentally," he said, in a process that would probably take several years.