The Russian State Duma on Wednesday passed legislation suspending the bilateral agreement with the United States through which each country had planned to dispose of 34 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium, following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decree early this month officially halting his nation’s participation in the deal.
Putin signed a decree on Oct. 3 suspending the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA), signed in 2000 and amended in 2010, citing hostile U.S. actions and Washington’s failure to uphold its end of the deal.
Specifically, Russian officials referred to the U.S. domestic dispute over the fate of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, under construction at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to dispose of the U.S. plutonium under the agreement, as evidence that the U.S. fell short of its commitments. The Obama administration aims to cancel the project in favor of an alternative method of processing plutonium that it says would save tens of billions of dollars and cut years off the project’s completion schedule. The plan has drawn opposition from members of Congress, particularly those from South Carolina, and is not listed as an option under the PMDA.
Upon signing the decree, Putin submitted a bill to the Russian legislature outlining conditions under which the nation would agree to restore the agreement; these include a reduction of U.S. military troops in countries that joined NATO after September 2000, the lifting of all U.S. sanctions against Russia, and compensation for the damage they caused.
A total of 445 deputies in the Russian legislative body voted in favor of the law on Wednesday. Even so, observers have said the bill was purely political, as Putin’s decree is already in effect. Upon being adopted by the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian legislature, draft laws are then taken up by the Council of the Federation before being sent to the president.
The Russians have reaffirmed that the plutonium covered under the agreement will still remain outside of military use.
Russian-U.S. tensions have escalated significantly since Putin returned to the presidency in 2012, including in the nuclear arms sphere. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that U.S. officials believe Russia is advancing work toward deployment of a ground-based nuclear cruise missile in contravention of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. While the Obama administration has said for years that Russia has breached the INF, officials now believe the Putin government is manufacturing a greater number of missiles that necessary for flight testing, according to the report. The INF Treaty prohibits testing, manufacturing, and stockpiling of ground-launched cruise or ballistic missiles with fight ranges of 300 to 3,400 miles.
