MOSCOW. (Andrei Fedyashin, RIA Novosti political...

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, a bilateral treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union was signed on 31 July 1991 and expired on December 5, 2009. It remained in force pending agreement on a successor, since Russia and the United States failed to agree on a new pact before the deadline.

The talks that resumed in Geneva after the holidays on February 1 indeed seem to have moved into the final stage, with the agreement only requiring the final touches to be put to its terminology and technical details. In any case, negotiators on both sides are unanimous that the document is 95%-97% ready.

The scale of the reductions planned is already known. The United States and Russia agreed to keep the number of nuclear delivery vehicles between 500 and 1,100, and the number of warheads between 1,500 and 1,675. These figures may still be altered, for example increasing the number of delivery vehicles allowed while decreasing the number of warheads, or the reverse. In

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