Trump says that Putin’s offer about nuclear weapons control ‘sounds like a good idea’

By Andrea Shaal

The president of Washington (Reuters) -s, Donald Trump, said on Sunday the offer of Russian President Vladimir Putin to voluntarily maintain limits on strategic nuclear weapons displayed “sounds like a good idea.”

Putin last month offered to voluntarily maintain limiting limiting the size of the two largest nuclear arsenals in the world established in the new 2010 Accord, which expires in February, if the United States does the same.

“It sounds like a good idea for me,” Trump told reporters while leaving the White House, when asked about Putin’s offer.

The UN ambassador of Russia, Vassily Nebenzia, last week had said that Moscow was still waiting for Trump to respond to Putin’s offer to voluntarily maintain the limits in strategic nuclear weapons deployed once a key arms control treaty expires.

Any agreement to continue limiting nuclear weapons contrasts with the increase in tensions between the United States and Russia since Trump and Putin gathered in Alaska in mid -August given the reported incursions of Russian drones in NATO airspace.

Speaking in a video clip posted on Sunday, Putin warned that the United States’s decision to supply long -range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine for strikes in Russia would destroy Moscow’s relationship with Washington.

The United States Vice President JD Vance said last month that Washington was considering a Ukrainian application to obtain missiles that could reach Russia, including Moscow, although it is not clear if a final decision has been made.

Trump, who has expressed his disappointment for Putin for not moving to end the war in Ukraine, was not directly asked on Sunday about the possibility of supplying Tomahawks to Ukraine.

“This will lead to the destruction of our relationships, or at least the positive trends that have arisen in these relationships,” Putin said in a video clip published Sunday by the state -owned reporter Russian Russian Pavel Pavel Zarubin.

An American official and three other sources told Reuters that the desire of the Trump Administration to send long -range Missiles to Ukraine may not be viable because current inventories are committed to the US Navy. And other uses.

Trump is touring an aircraft carrier of the US Navy., George Hw Bush, off the coast of Virginia on Sunday, and will give a speech about a second airline, the Harry S. Truman, later.

Tomahawk cruise missiles have a range of 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles). If Ukraine obtained the missiles, the Kremlin and the entire European Russia would be within the target.

(Andrea Shalal report; Cynthia Osterman and Chizu Nomiyama edition)