Russia Archive

At the end of August, U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar and former Sen. Sam Nunn visited Russia to reinvigorate the pioneering U.S.-funded Comprehensive Threat Reduction Program (CTR) they helped launch a decade-and-a-half ago. The CTR program, widely known as the Nunn-Lugar Program, aims to secure and eliminate the weapons of mass destruction the new Russian Federation inherited from the Soviet Union following the U.S.S.R.’s demise in 1991. On Aug. 30, the two senators visited the chemical weapons destruction facility that the United States and other foreign governments — most notably Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic, Italy, Norway and Switzerland — are […]

On Sept. 3, the Russian government indicated it would insist on challenging conditions for negotiating any limitations on its tactical nuclear weapons (TNW). Russian Col. Gen. Vladimir Verkhovtsev, head of the Defense Ministry’s 12th Main Directorate, which is responsible for Russia’s nuclear weapons, told reporters that Russia would require that other countries — “above all France and Britain” — join with Moscow and Washington in any future TNW arms control talks. For years, Western officials, legislators, and analysts have called for additional measures to eliminate, or at least sharply reduce, the remaining TNWs in the U.S. and Russian arsenals. TNWs […]

For decades during the Cold War, the United States sought nuclear primacy. Now it may be on the verge of achieving it. As America’s presidential candidates begin to articulate positions on nuclear policy, it is worth remembering that in all dealings with the nuclear genie, you should be careful what you wish for. . . . When a state can obliterate its adversary’s arsenal with a first strike, it is said to possess nuclear primacy. America had primacy early in the Cold War, but the Soviet Union’s acquisition of a secure second strike capability in the 1960s ushered in the […]

At the end of August, Iranian presidential spokesman Ali Akbar Javanfekr threatened to turn to “other candidates” to complete the country’s long-delayed nuclear power plant at Bushehr if “problems arise again” between Tehran and Moscow over the project. The previous month, European officials related that the Russian government had informed Iran in July that Moscow would refuse to supply nuclear fuel for the Russian-built nuclear reactor until Tehran provides more details about its past nuclear activities to the international community. These reports might indicate that the Russian government has finally decided to suspend cooperation with Iran’s nuclear program until Tehran […]