Russia denies violating the agreement and has raised its own concerns about Washington`s compliance. Moscow has accused the United States of placing a missile defense system in Europe that could also be used to launch cruise missiles, using targets for missile tests with characteristics similar to those of the FCI Treaty, and manufacturing armed drones equivalent to ground-mounted cruise missiles. On October 20, 2018, President Donald Trump announced his intention to "denounce" the deal citing Russia`s non-compliance and concerns about Chinese missiles, and on December 4, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared Russia a "material violation" of the treaty. The Trump administration officially informed the other states parties in February. 2, both that it suspends its treaty obligations and would withdraw from the agreement in six months, in accordance with the terms of the treaty, and that it would "terminate" the agreement, unless Russia returns to compliance by eliminating its 9M729 missiles on the ground. Billingslea told the Heritage Foundation that he was so sure an agreement had been reached "at the highest level" that he ended his meetings in Asia this month to meet with Ryabkov. On March 26, U.S. President Obama and Russian President Medvedev officially announced that they had agreed on the New START Treaty. On July 17, Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Thomas A. Shannon met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Rybakov. The talks stressed the need to create a long-term bilateral agreement between the two countries. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin to pursue a follow-up agreement on START I.

START II, signed in January 1993, called for the reduction of deployed strategic arsenals to 3,000-3,500 warheads and prohibited the deployment of destabilizing land-based missiles using multiple warheads. START II would have counted warheads in much the same way as START I and would have required, like its predecessor, the destruction of delivery vehicles, but not warheads. . . .