Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he told Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, that Moscow must end its war against Ukraine and return to a nuclear arms control treaty.
Mutual inspections have been suspended for years because of the pandemic. But New START, the last nuclear agreement between Russia and the United States, is dying.
The United States says Russia is not allowing American inspectors access to its arsenal to ensure compliance with the New START agreement, which the two nations renewed in 2021.
Mr. Gorbachev was charming and presented himself as a modernizer, but neither Ronald Reagan nor George Bush was convinced he was for real. They would both be proved wrong.