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World enters uncharted era as US-Russia nuclear treaty expires, opening door to fastest arms race in decades

World enters uncharted era as US-Russia nuclear treaty expires, opening door to fastest arms race in decades

A historic nuclear arms reduction treaty is set to expire Thursday, which will thrust the world into a nuclear situation it has not faced in more than five decades, one in which there are no longer any binding limits on the size of Russia’s or America’s nuclear arsenals and no inspection regime to verify what Moscow does next. Matt Korda, associate director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said the expiration of the New START treaty forces both countries to rethink assumptions that have guided nuclear planning for more than a decade.  “Up until now, both countries have planned their respective nuclear modernization programs based on the assumption that the other country is not going to exceed those central limits,” Korda said. “Without those central limits … both countries are going to be reassessing their programs to accommodate a more uncertain nuclear future.” TRUMP WARNS RUSSIA: US HAS WORLD’S GREATEST NUCLEAR SUBMARINE ‘RIGHT OFF THEIR SHORES’ Russia had already suspended its participation in New START in 2023, freezing inspections and data exchanges, but the treaty’s expiration eliminates the last legal framework governing the size of the two countries’ nuclear arsenals. With no follow-up agreement in place, the administration has insisted it cannot agree to arms control without the cooperation of China.  “The president has been clear in the past that in order to have true arms control in the 21st century, it’s impossible to do something that doesn’t include China because of their vast and rapidly growing stockpile,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday. A White House official told Fox News President Donald Trump will decide the path forward on arms control “on his own timeline.” “President Trump has spoken repeatedly of addressing the threat nuclear weapons pose to the world and indicated that he would like to keep limits on nuclear weapons and involve China in arms control talks.” Experts are skeptical that China would ever agree to limit its nuclear stockpile until it’s reached parity with the U.S., and Russia has said it would not pressure China to come to the table.  China aims to have 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, but even that figure pales in comparison to the aging giants of the Cold War. As of early 2026, the global nuclear hierarchy remains top-heavy, with the U.S. and Russia holding roughly 86% of the world’s total inventory. Both the U.S. and Russia hold around 4,000 total warheads, with close to 1,700 deployed by each. Global nuclear stockpiles declined to about 12,000 in 2025, down from more than 70,000 in 1986. In February 2023, Russia announced it was suspending its participation in the New START treaty, halting inspections and data-sharing under the pact while saying it would continue to respect the numerical limits. But, more recently, it floated the idea of extending the treaty by another year. TRUMP STUNS WITH CALL TO RESUME NUCLEAR TESTS — WHY NOW, AND WHAT IT COULD MEAN Korda said that proposal reflected shared constraints rather than a sudden change in Russian intentions.  “It’s not in Russia’s interest to dramatically accelerate an arms race while its current modernization programs are going so poorly and while its industrial capacity is tied up in Ukraine,” he said. Korda said that without inspections and data exchanges, countries are forced to rely on their own intelligence, increasing uncertainty and encouraging worst-case planning.  “Without those onsite inspections, without data exchanges, without anything like that, all countries are really left with national technical means of being able to monitor each other’s nuclear forces,” Korda said. With New START’s limits gone, experts said the immediate concern is not the construction of new nuclear weapons but how quickly existing warheads could be deployed. Ankit Panda, a Stanton senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Russia could move faster than the United States in the near term by “uploading” additional warheads onto missiles already in service.  “Uploading would be a process of adding additional warheads to our ICBMs and submarine-launched missiles,” Panda said. “The Russians could be much faster than the United States.” PUTIN PRAISES TRUMP’S ‘SINCERE’ PEACE EFFORTS, SIGNALS POSSIBLE US-RUSSIA NUCLEAR DEAL Korda said a large-scale upload would not happen overnight but could still alter force levels within a relatively short window.  “We’re looking at maybe a timeline of about two years and pretty significant sums of money for each country to execute a complete upload across the entire force,” he said, adding that, in a worst-case scenario, it could “roughly result in doubling the sizes of their deployed nuclear arsenals.” That advantage, however, is constrained by longer-term industrial realities. Panda noted that the U.S. nuclear weapons complex lacks the production capacity it once had, limiting how quickly Washington could sustain a larger arsenal over time.  “The United States is currently unable to produce what is going to be a target for 30 plutonium pits,” a fraction of Cold War output, he said. Nicole Grajewski, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Russia’s ability to produce nuclear weapons may be faster than the U.S. in some, but not all, parts of the development chain.  “Russia is very good at warhead production,” she told Fox News Digital. “What Russia is really fundamentally constrained on is the delivery vehicle side of it.” Grajewski added that this is particularly true as the war in Ukraine continues. Russia’s production of missiles and other delivery systems relies on facilities that also support conventional weapons used in the war, limiting how quickly Moscow could expand the intercontinental missiles, submarine-launched weapons and bombers that made up the core of New START. As a result, Grajewski said she is less concerned about a rapid buildup of those treaty-covered forces than about Moscow’s continued investment in nuclear systems that fall outside traditional arms control frameworks.  “What is more concerning is Russia’s advances in asymmetric domains,” she said, pointing to systems such as the Poseidon nuclear-powered torpedo and nuclear-powered cruise missiles, which are not covered by

Republicans, Trump run into Senate roadblock on voter ID bill

Republicans, Trump run into Senate roadblock on voter ID bill

Congressional Republicans, President Donald Trump and their shared base of support want to see voter ID legislation become law, but the last barrier is the Senate, where political reality has turned the notion into a pipe dream.  The GOP’s legislative push to codify more requirements and restrictions surrounding voter registration nearly derailed Congress’ attempt to end the latest partial government shutdown on Tuesday.  In an unlikely turn of events, like Senate Democrats’ push to save expiring Obamacare subsidies’ during the last funding battle and House Republicans’ desire to attach election integrity legislation, dubbed the SAVE America Act, to the Trump-backed package this week brought the issue back into focus.  SCHUMER NUKES GOP PUSH FOR ‘JIM CROW-ERA’ VOTER ID LAWS IN TRUMP-BACKED SHUTDOWN PACKAGE Trump, who encouraged House Republicans to stand down from their do-or-die demands, renewed his call to pass voter ID legislation while signing the funding package into law Tuesday. “We should have voter ID, by the way,” Trump said. “We should have a lot of the things that I think everybody wants to see. Who would not want voter ID? Only somebody that wants to cheat.”  While several Senate Republicans support what the bill could accomplish, they acknowledge the legislation would die on the floor without a handful of Senate Democrats, who nearly unanimously despise the move.   “Democrats want to make it easy to cheat,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Fox News Digital. “They don’t want to do anything to secure elections.” The issue at hand, as has often been the case during Trump’s second term, is the 60-vote filibuster. The president has called on Senate Republicans to eviscerate it several times throughout the last year as the precarious threshold has time and again impeded his agenda.  THUNE REJECTS TRUMP’S CALL TO NATIONALIZE ELECTIONS, WARNS DEMS TRIED THE SAME Some Senate Republicans, including Johnson, are mulling turning to the precursor to the modern filibuster — the talking, or standing, filibuster. The modern filibuster is less strenuous, literally, than the standing filibuster. While today’s standard requires that senators hit at least 60 votes, the standing filibuster demanded that lawmakers debate on the floor, consuming one of the Senate’s most valuable commodities — time. “The only way that’s going to get passed is if we do a talking filibuster or we end the filibuster,” Johnson said. There’s little appetite among Senate Republicans to nuke the filibuster given that it could play right into the desires of Senate Democrats, who tried and failed to modify the procedure when they controlled the upper chamber under former President Joe Biden.  And many acknowledge that the votes simply aren’t there to do so.  One Senate Republican told Fox News Digital that the “filibuster is not on the table” as pressure mounts to move on the SAVE America Act, but that the legislation would likely get a shot in the upper chamber and earn 51 Republican votes. But, the lawmaker contended, the question was what happened next in the likely event the bill fails. The notion of turning to the standing filibuster, the physical and original version of the filibuster, was also swiftly sidelined by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who said while there was interest among Republicans to discuss the option, “there weren’t any commitments made.” HOUSE CONSERVATIVES THREATEN EXTENDED SHUTDOWN OVER ELECTION INTEGRITY MEASURE Forcing the standing filibuster would come with its own ramifications in the Senate, given that the most valuable commodity in the upper chamber is floor time. That’s because of rules that guarantee any senator gets up to two speeches on a bill. That, coupled with the clock being reset by amendments to the bill, means that the Senate could effectively be paralyzed for months as Republicans chip away at Democratic opposition. “There’s always an opportunity cost,” Thune said. “At any time there’s an amendment offered, and that amendment is tabled, it resets the clock,” he continued. “The two-speech rule kicks in again. So let’s say, you know, every Democrat senator talks for two hours. That’s 940 hours on the floor.” Still, some Republicans hope that the bill gets its moment in the Senate. Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., who was an original co-sponsor of the bill, told Fox News Digital he hoped it got a chance on the floor and contended that it was a “very important thing to do.” “I don’t know,” Schmitt said. “I mean, we’ll never know unless it happens.”

Can India switch from Russian to Venezuelan oil, as Trump wants?

Can India switch from Russian to Venezuelan oil, as Trump wants?

New Delhi, India – When US President Donald Trump announced a trade deal with India on Monday this week, he declared that New Delhi would pivot away from Russian energy as part of the agreement. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Trump said, had promised to stop buying Russian oil, and instead buy crude from the United States and from Venezuela, whose president, Nicolas Maduro, was abducted by US special forces in early January. Since then, the US has effectively taken control of Venezuela’s mammoth oil industry. In return, Trump dialled down trade tariffs on Indian goods from an overall 50 percent to just 18 percent. Half of that 50 percent tariff was levied last year as punishment for India buying Russian oil, which the White House maintains is financing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. But since Monday, India has not publicly confirmed that it has committed to either ceasing its purchase of Russian oil or embracing Venezuelan crude, analysts note. Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, told reporters on Tuesday that Russia had received no indication of this from India, either. And switching from Russian to Venezuelan oil will be far from straightforward. A cocktail of other factors – shocks to the energy market, costs, geography, and the characteristics of different kinds of oil – will complicate New Delhi’s decisions about its sourcing of oil, they say. So, can India really dump Russian oil? And can Venezuelan crude replace it? US President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference on Saturday, January 3, 2026 at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, the US as Secretary of State Marco Rubio listens [Alex Brandon/AP] What is Trump’s plan? Trump has been pressuring India to stop buying Russian oil for months. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the US and European Union placed an oil price cap on Russian crude in a bid to limit Russia’s ability to finance the war. Advertisement As a result, other countries including India began buying large quantities of cheap Russian oil. India, which before the war sourced only 2.5 percent of its oil from Russia, became the second-largest consumer of Russian oil after China. It currently sources around 30 percent of its oil from Russia. Last year, Trump doubled trade tariffs on Indian goods from 25 percent to 50 percent as punishment for this. Later in the year, Trump also imposed sanctions on Russia’s two biggest oil companies – and threatened secondary sanctions against countries and entities that trade with these firms. Since the abduction of Maduro by US forces in early January, Trump has effectively taken over the Venezuelan oil sector, controlling sales cash flows. Venezuela also has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, estimated at 303 billion barrels, more than five times larger than those of the US, the world’s largest oil producer. But while getting India to buy Venezuelan oil makes sense from the US’s perspective, analysts say this could be operationally messy. A man sits by railway tracks as a freight train transports petrol wagons in Ajmer, India, on August 27, 2025. US tariffs of 50 percent took effect on August 27 on many Indian products, doubling an existing duty as US President Donald Trump sought to punish New Delhi for buying Russian oil [File: Himanshu Sharma/AFP] How much oil does India import from Russia? India currently imports nearly 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) of Russian crude, according to analytics company Kpler. Under Trump’s mounting pressure, that is lower than the average 1.21 million bpd in December 2025 and more than 2 million bpd in mid-2025. One barrel is equivalent to 159 litres (42 gallons) of crude oil. Once refined, a barrel typically produces about 73 litres (19 gallons) of petrol for a car. Oil is also refined to produce a wide variety of products, from jet fuel to household items including plastics and even lotions. Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greet each other before a meeting in New Delhi, India, on December 6, 2021 [File: Manish Swarup/AP] Has India stopped Russian oil purchases? India has reduced the amount of oil it buys from Russia over the past year, but it has not stopped buying it altogether. Under increasing pressure from Trump, last August, Indian officials called out the “hypocrisy” of the US and EU pressuring New Delhi to back off from Russian crude. “In fact, India began importing from Russia because traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the conflict,” Randhir Jaiswal, India’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said then. He added that India’s decision to import Russian oil was “meant to ensure predictable and affordable energy costs to the Indian consumer”. Advertisement Despite this, Indian refiners, currently the second-largest group of buyers of Russian oil after China, are reportedly winding up their purchases after clearing current scheduled orders. Major refiners like Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL), and HPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd (HMEL) halted purchasing from Russia following the US sanctions against Russian oil producers last year. Other players like Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation, and Reliance Industries will soon stop their purchases. A man pushes his cart as he walks past Bharat Petroleum’s storage tankers in Mumbai, India, December 8, 2022 [File: Punit Paranjpe/AFP] What happens if India suddenly stops buying Russian oil? Even if India wanted to stop importing Russian oil altogether, analysts argue it would be extremely costly to do so. In September last year, India’s oil and petroleum minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, told reporters that it would also sharply push up energy prices and fuel inflation. “The world will face serious consequences if the supplies are disrupted. The world can’t afford to keep Russia off the oil market,” Puri said. Analysts tend to agree. “A complete cessation of Indian purchases of Russian oil would be a major disruption. An immediate halt would spike global prices and threaten India’s economic growth,” said George Voloshin, an independent energy analyst based in

US border security chief withdrawing 700 immigration agents from Minnesota

US border security chief withdrawing 700 immigration agents from Minnesota

United States border security chief Tom Homan has announced that the administration of President Donald Trump will “draw down” 700 immigration enforcement personnel from Minnesota while promising to continue operations in the northern state. The update on Wednesday was the latest indication of the Trump administration pivoting on its enforcement surge in the state following the killing of two US citizens by immigration agents in Minneapolis in January. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Homan, who is officially called Trump’s “border czar”, said the decision came amid new cooperation agreements with local authorities, particularly related to detaining individuals at county jails. Details of those agreements were not immediately available. About 3,000 immigration enforcement agents are currently believed to be in Minnesota as part of Trump’s enforcement operations. “Given this increase in unprecedented collaboration, and as a result of the need for less law enforcement officers to do this work in a safer environment, I have announced, effective immediately, we will draw down 700 people effective today – 700 law enforcement personnel,” Homan said. The announcement comes after Homan was sent to Minnesota at the end of January in response to widespread protests over immigration enforcement and the killing of Renee Nicole Good on January 7 by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent and Alex Pretti on January 24 by a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer, both in Minneapolis. Homan said reforms made since his arrival have included consolidating ICE and CBP under a single chain of command. Advertisement He said Trump “fully intends to achieve mass deportations during this administration, and immigration enforcement actions will continue every day throughout this country”. Immigration rights observers have said the administration’s mass deportation approach has seen agents use increasingly “dragnet” tactics to meet large detention quotas, including randomly stopping individuals and asking for their papers. The administration has increasingly detained undocumented individuals with no criminal records, even US citizens and people who have legal status to live in the US. Homan said agents would prioritise who they considered to be “public safety threats” but added, “Just because you prioritise public safety threats, don’t mean we forget about everybody else. We will continue to enforce the immigration laws in this country.” The “drawdown”, he added, would not apply to what he described as “personnel providing security for our officers”. “We will not draw down on personnel providing security and responding to hostile incidents until we see a change,” he said. Critics have accused immigration enforcement officers, who do not receive the same level of crowd control training as most local police forces, of using excessive violence in responding to protesters and individuals legally monitoring their actions. Trump administration officials have regularly blamed unrest on “agitators”. They accused both Good and Pretti of threatening officers before their killings although video evidence of the exchanges has contradicted that characterisation. Last week, the administration announced it was opening a federal civil rights investigation into the killing of Pretti, who was fatally shot while he was pinned to the ground by immigration agents. That came moments after an agent removed a gun from Pretti’s body, which the 37-year-old had not drawn and was legally carrying. Federal authorities have not opened a civil rights investigation into the killing of Good, who they have maintained sought to run over an ICE agent before she was fatally shot. Video evidence appeared to show Good trying to turn away from the agent. On Friday, thousands of people took to the streets of Minneapolis and other US cities amid calls for a federal strike in protest against the Trump administration’s deportation drive. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and other state and local officials have also challenged the immigration enforcement surge in the state, arguing that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and the CBP, has been violating constitutional protections. Advertisement A federal judge last week said she will not halt the operations as a lawsuit progresses in court. Department of Justice lawyers have dismissed the suit as “legally frivolous”. On Wednesday, a poll released by the Marquette Law School found wide-ranging disquiet over ICE’s approach, with 60 percent of US adults nationwide saying they disapproved of how the agency was conducting itself. The poll was conducted from January 21 to January 28, with many of the surveys conducted before Pretti’s killing. The poll still found widespread support for ICE among Republicans, with about 80 percent approving of its work. Just 5 percent of Democrats voiced similar approval. Perhaps most worryingly for Republicans ahead of the 2026 midterms in November, just 23 percent of independents – potential swing voters in the upcoming vote – approved of ICE’s actions. Adblock test (Why?)

Russian shelling kills seven in Ukrainian market, clouding Abu Dhabi talks

Russian shelling kills seven in Ukrainian market, clouding Abu Dhabi talks

Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin accused Moscow of carrying out ‘another targeted war crime’. Published On 4 Feb 20264 Feb 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share Russian forces have shelled Ukraine’s eastern city of Druzhkivka, killing at least seven people at a crowded market, according to the regional governor. The attack, using cluster munitions, targeted the market during a typically busy time on Wednesday morning, Donetsk governor Vadym Filashkin said. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list In addition to the seven killed, 15 others were injured, he said. The eldest victim was 81. Separately, Russia’s military dropped two aerial bombs on the city, which advancing Russian forces are seeking to capture, damaging several homes and buildings, said Filashkin. The attacks came as Russian and Ukrainian officials took part in a second round of United States-brokered negotiations in Abu Dhabi, further angering Ukrainian officials who claimed Moscow had already violated a one-week pledge to cease attacks on its energy facilities. “This is another targeted war crime and further proof that all Russian statements about a ‘truce’ are worthless,” said Filashkin. Elsewhere, Russian strikes hammered the central Dnipropetrovsk region, killing a 68-year-old woman and a 38-year-old man in a residential area, as well as the southern city of Odesa, damaging some 20 residential buildings, according to local officials. On the ground, Russia’s military also claimed its forces seized control of Ukraine’s eastern settlements of Staroukrainka ​and ‌Stepanivka, adding to a slow, bloody advance that Moscow feels can boost its position in negotiations. European Commission spokesperson Anitta Hipper accused Russian ‍President Vladimir Putin of abusing the negotiations in the United Arab Emirates by ⁠continuing attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure. Advertisement “Putin ⁠can end this war right now. He doesn’t show any signs of ​wanting ‌to do so. He misuses even the discussions ‌on the ceasefire to ‌continuously attack ⁠the civilian infrastructure and kill innocent people,” said Hipper. While Russia hopes it can outlast and outgun Kyiv’s stretched army, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pushing his Western backers to boost their own weapons supplies and heap economic and political pressure on the Kremlin to halt its invasion. Adblock test (Why?)