New US-Russia Cooperative Threat Reduction Agreement

The United States and Russia have reached a new agreement on bilateral efforts to dismantle and secure WMD in Russia. This accord replaces the now-expired agreement that supported the long-running Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, otherwise known as the Nunn-Lugar program. On June 17, the White House released a fact sheet on the new agreement, which reads:

On June 14, the United States and the Russian Federation signed a new bilateral framework on threat reduction that reinforces our longstanding partnership on nonproliferation. This new framework builds upon the success of the 1992 Agreement between the United States of America and the Russian Federation Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation, Storage and Destruction of Weapons and the Prevention of Weapons Proliferation, commonly known as the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Umbrella Agreement that expires today.

As long-time partners with a mutual interest in promoting nuclear security, the United States and the Russian Federation have successfully partnered on a broad range of activities designed to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by securing and eliminating WMD-related materials and technology, and engaging relevant expertise. Joint U.S. and Russian nuclear security activities will be conducted under the Framework Agreement on a Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme in the Russian Federation (MNEPR) and a related bilateral Protocol. This new bilateral framework authorizes the United States and the Russian Federation to work in several areas of nonproliferation collaboration, including protecting, controlling, and accounting for nuclear materials.

The signing of the new bilateral framework demonstrates that the United States and the Russian Federation remain committed to nuclear security and other mutual nonproliferation objectives.

Global Security Newswire has two stories on the new agreement from June 17 and June 18, which included the statement that “[w]hat exactly U.S. nonproliferation programs . . . will be able to do in Russia under the new agreement remains unclear[.]”