Why destroy the weapons in a place with no infrastructure and a population present? Just ship it to the US’s Johnston Island or the equivalent Russian facility that are already setup for this deactivation and destruction. This makes too much sense so there must be some hidden reason why the obvious is not the strategy.
About two years ago, I remember some interview with a manager from the Johnston Island facility and the question came of what happens when they’d finished all the US deactivation and destruction....and the manager simply didn’t know.
It would seem perfectly logical that you’d select the island facility, and continue a safe operation.
The only reason for not selecting the island? You don’t intend to ever start or complete any of this business, and you are merely wasting weeks and months pretending that you would do it.
Course, it may be that no one in the news media has told the President about Johnson Island, and thus...he doesn’t know about it. That’s the primary problem....he knows nothing, unless CNN tells him.