Will Trump break the nuclear agreement with Putin?

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are said to be moving towards the use of nuclear energy. This concern stems from an important statement made by Trump regarding the nuclear agreement between the United States and Russia.

In an interview with a newspaper, Trump said, “I don’t care if the START treaty between the United States and Russia expires. I think we and Russia can come to a better agreement, but this proposed new agreement will have to include countries like China so that the boundaries of nuclear energy can be set for the whole world.” With such statements, Trump stated that he was not serious about the nuclear agreement with Russia and that he may want to terminate the agreement completely.

What is the START agreement?

In 1991, the USA and Russia signed the START treaty. According to this agreement, both countries agreed not to build new nuclear weapons. The agreement was extended in 2009 and 2021. Now, the current START treaty between the two countries is set to expire on February 5.

During his meeting with Trump in Alaska, Putin suggested extending the agreement, but Trump’s mention of China regarding the agreement shows that he does not want to extend the current agreement. The nuclear deal is just one point. Tension between Putin and Trump has been increasing over the last three months.

In October 2025, the Trump administration authorized Ukraine to attack Russian oil and energy resources. On January 7, 2026, the US Navy seized a Russian cargo ship. On January 8, Trump announced that a 500 percent tariff would be imposed on countries that buy oil from Russia. On the same night, Putin rejected the ceasefire proposed by the USA in Ukraine, and on January 9, Putin announced that if European countries sent peacekeepers to Ukraine, these peacekeepers would also become Russia’s target.

The incessant actions and rhetoric from both sides show that neither Trump nor Putin is in the mood to back down. Regarding such conflicts between major powers, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made an important observation.

Kissinger used to say that nuclear-armed nations are essentially like blind men. Such countries see neither morality nor logic; If they instead come into conflict with each other, the result is nothing but destruction. Similar conditions appear to be developing between the United States and Russia. Trump’s ego and Putin’s rigid attitude pitted the two superpowers against each other.

Russia and the United States together possess more than 1,100 nuclear weapons. If these weapons were unleashed on each other, it would trigger a nuclear winter, a period of unimaginable suffering and destruction. In a nuclear winter, smoke and soot from atomic explosions would cover the upper layers of Earth’s atmosphere, blocking sunlight from reaching 70 percent of the planet’s surface.

This layer of soot and smoke will persist for approximately 10 years. Due to a prolonged lack of sunlight, the Earth’s average temperature will drop by 15 to 20 degrees Celsius, causing cold temperatures to increase rapidly. Changing weather conditions will disrupt the rainfall cycle and destroy approximately 55 percent of the world’s agriculture. In short, a nuclear winter would bring not only destruction but also widespread famine. Therefore, the world wants Trump and Putin to soften their stance and expand the scope of the nuclear agreement to eliminate the danger of nuclear war that surrounds the world.