Impasse is leaving us all without safety net

THE ending of the nuclear arms treaty between the US and Russia removes one more layer of protection for the world against atomic weapons use.

- BY CHRIS HUGHES

And it probably could not come at a worse time, with tensions between Moscow and Nato almost piano-wire tight and America increasingly ambivalent towards the alliance.

Vladimir Putin has already said he would sign the New START treaty as an extension for a year but Donald Trump has kicked it down the road, to be addressed in the future.

Russia and the US hold 90 per cent of the world’s nuclear weapons, with Moscow's the largest atomic weapons cache going.