As already detailed above, inspection and notification requirements under the treaty ensure a high degree of transparency and make it difficult for either side to conceal large numbers of weapons. In any case, analysts suggest that Russia does not have the capacity to manufacture large numbers of missiles and may even struggle to reach permitted levels. It is therefore probable that the data disclosed by the two parties closely reflects the actual state of their nuclear forces.
According to such data, both the US and Russia reduced their strategic nuclear forces to below treaty limits by the February 2018 deadline, when the limits took full effect, and have remained in compliance with those limits since then. In its annual report on implementation of the New START Treaty, of which the latest published version is from January 2020, the US State Department confirms that Russia was in compliance at the end of 2019. Russia raised questions in the New START bilateral consultative commission about US techniques to convert SLMB launch tubes and bombers so they do not count under the treaty’s limits, but eventually dropped its insistence that this issue would have to be addressed before extending the treaty.
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