Putin says Russia ready to resume arms control talks with US
The offer covers arms control alone and stops short of the wider Ukraine peace process under discussion this month
Published
President Vladimir Putin said Russia is ready to resume dialog with the United States on arms control.
The statement comes after weeks of nuclear-tinged rhetoric over Kaliningrad, during which NATO chief Mark Rutte called the alliance purely defensive and told Russia to stop talking about nuclear threats, with no matching military move from Moscow. The Kremlin separately said its diplomats would remind European counterparts of founding security documents, again without any accompanying shift on the ground.
Putin's offer is narrower and more mechanical than the broader Ukraine peace threads running through the Kremlin channel this month. Arms control has historically moved on its own slower track even when ceasefire diplomacy stalls. It also follows weeks in which contacts between Kirill Dmitriev and US officials were described as "constructive" without producing terms, so this latest statement adds to a list of open channels rather than marking a concrete shift.
For crude oil, the statement changes little on its own. Recent price pressure has come from refinery strikes and tariff threats aimed at buyers of Russian product, not from the diplomatic track. Any easing of sanctions risk tied to arms talks would only matter to the market if it eventually extends into a Ukraine settlement itself.