Ashwin's unbeaten 102 off 112 balls, his sixth Test hundred, included 10 fours and two sixes
cricket1 hour ago
The United States and Russia said on Wednesday they had extended the New START arms control treaty for five years, preserving the last treaty limiting deployments of the world's two largest strategic nuclear arsenals.
The pact, due to expire on Friday, was extended to February 5, 2026, despite bilateral disputes over Russia's jailing of poisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, alleged cyber hacking of US government agencies and treatment of neighboring Ukraine.
The treaty, which first went into effect in 2011, limits the United States and Russia to deploying no more than 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads each and imposes restrictions on the land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them.
US President Joe Biden, who was sworn in on Jan. 20, acted quickly to extend the treaty, after his predecessor Donald Trump tried in vain to tie it to three-way talks with China covering its far smaller arsenal. Critics saw Trump's efforts as a poison pill to kill the treaty.
Both Washington and Moscow cast the extension as a victory, saying it would provide stability and transparency on nuclear issues while acknowledging some of their disagreements.
"Even as we work with Russia to advance U.S. interests, so too will we work to hold Russia to account for adversarial actions as well as its human rights abuses," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Biden has stressed holding Russia accountable for its treatment of Navalny, who was arrested on his Jan. 17 return from Germany, where he was recovering from his poisoning with a military-grade nerve agent. Navalny has blamed Russian state security agents for the poisoning, which the Kremlin has denied.
Navalny's arrest has sparked large protests in Russia that the government has sought to quell with mass arrests.
In a Jan. 26 call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden raised Navalny's case, as well as the cyber hack blamed on Russia that used US tech company SolarWinds Corp as a springboard to penetrate US government networks, and reports Russia offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill coalition forces in Afghanistan.
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