Russia says US silent on Putin nuclear pact extension proposal

Russia is still waiting for the United States to respond to President Vladimir Putin's proposal to informally extend for a year the provisions of the last remaining nuclear arms pact between the two countries, the Kremlin said on Thursday.

The New START treaty is due to expire in three weeks, and President Donald Trump has not formally responded to the offer that Putin made last September.

"No, we have not received a response. We are certainly awaiting a response to Putin's initiative; we consider this a very important topic," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

New START, which was signed by presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in 2010, sets limits on the strategic weapons that each side would use to target the other's critical political and military centres in the event of a nuclear war.

It caps the number of deployed strategic warheads at 1,550 on each side, with no more than 700 deployed ground- or submarine-launched missiles and bomber planes to deliver them. It is the last in a series of treaties dating back to the early 1970s that have enabled Moscow and Washington to maintain a stable nuclear balance even at times of acute international tension.