Putin denounces agreement with US on weapons-grade plutonium
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has denounced an agreement with the United States, under which Moscow and Washington pledged to dispose of 34 tons of plutonium that is no longer needed for defense purposes.
This is stated on the Official Legal Information Portal, Censor.NET reports.
The State Duma passed the relevant law on October 8, and the Federation Council approved it on October 22. In addition to the agreement, all related protocols are denounced.
More about the agreement
The agreement between Russia and the United States on weapons-grade plutonium was signed in 2000 and ratified in 2011. The document stipulated that the countries would dispose of 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium that was no longer needed for defense purposes. Utilization was supposed to begin in 2018, Medusa reports.
In October 2016, the agreement on plutonium utilization was suspended by a presidential decree. The Russian authorities justified this decision by "the emergence of a threat to strategic stability as a result of unfriendly US actions against Russia" and the inability of the United States to fulfill its obligations to dispose of excess weapons-grade plutonium.
Weapons-grade plutonium was originally planned to be used as a component of nuclear power plant fuel.
However, the United States recognized this method of disposal as disadvantageous for the development of nuclear energy and decided to hide it, which allowed Russia to accuse the US side of violating the agreement.
Russia's demands
In order to renew the plutonium utilization agreement, Russia put forward a number of demands in 2016:
- lifting of all sanctions imposed on Russia at that time;
- compensation for the damage caused by the restrictive measures;
- reduction of the US military infrastructure and the number of US troops in countries that joined NATO after September 1,
- 2000 to the level that existed at the time of the agreement.
The United States did not fulfill Russia's demands.
