MOSCOW, April 13 (AVN) - The State Duma lower house of parliament will ratify START-2 on Friday, Alexey Arbatov, deputy chairman of the Duma defence committee, told the Military News Agency.
According to him, the decision is primarily driven by the economic situation in the country. The costs of maintaining the nuclear arsenals at the level presupposed by START-2 are twice as low as those of START-1 reducing the expenditures to RUR30bn (about USD1bn) per annum. Tactical nuclear weapons will need extra financing as well.
"With the country's GDP lagging behind the NATO average by at least 20 times, Russia simply will not be able to reach military parity outside the frames of the limits set by international agreements," Arbatov stressed.
This, in turn, means that if the Treaty is not ratified, 10-15 years from now the NATO strategic potential will be three to four times higher than the Russian.
START-1 reduced the quantitative level of the US and Russian strategic forces to 6,000 warheads each. START-2 brings it down to 3,000-3,500 warheads.
Russia and America should proceed with intensive full-scale negotiations on START-3 so that to drop the number of warheads to 1,000-1,500 for each party, the parliamentarian added.