TASS: US presidential candidate--Trump should have accepted Putin's New START proposal--

Below is a machine translation of a February 5, 2026 TASS release 'US presidential candidate--Trump should have accepted Putin's New START proposal'

WASHINGTON, February 5. /TASS Correspondent Sergei Yumatov/. American President Donald Trump should immediately accept Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposal to maintain the central restrictions of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) for one year, independent US presidential candidate Diane Sare told TASS.

"President Trump should have responded affirmatively to President Putin's proposal immediately upon its introduction," Sare stated. "I believe a one-year extension, during which the Ukrainian proxy war could finally end, would allow the American side to develop a more constructive approach to relations with the other leading nuclear power on the planet – Russia," she emphasized.

According to Sare, who announced her independent bid for the 2028 presidential election in January, "US-Russia relations have suffered enormous damage over the past 13 years, particularly since the color revolution in Ukraine." "Under these circumstances, attempting to negotiate a new agreement would be virtually impossible," she asserts.

Sayre spent 32 years as an associate of Lyndon LaRouche (1922-2019), an American economist and nonconformist politician, the author of the so-called theory of physical economics and an opponent of monetarist concepts. LaRouche positioned himself as a friend of Russia, considered it a key player on the global stage, and asserted that Russia, along with China, India, the United States, and several other countries, could save the world from the greatest crisis in history. LaRouche ran for president of the United States eight times. He first announced his candidacy in 1976, after which he participated in every presidential campaign until George W. Bush's reelection in 2004.

Last September, at a meeting with the Russian Security Council, the Russian president announced that Moscow was prepared to continue adhering to the document's quantitative restrictions for another year after the New START expires. However, he noted, this measure was only viable if Washington followed suit. Responding to a TASS question on October 5, 2025, Trump called Putin's proposal a good idea. However, the US has yet to take any practical action in response to Russia's proposal.

The New START Treaty expired on February 5. The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that, under the current circumstances, Moscow assumes that the parties are no longer bound by any obligations under the treaty and are free to choose their next steps. Russia intends to act "responsibly and deliberately," formulating its policy on strategic offensive arms based on a thorough analysis of US military policy and the overall strategic situation, the ministry added.