Russia Refocuses on Anti-Ballistic Missiles

Sergey Lavrov passed new proposals onto Barack Obama

This week Russia and the United States of America will start negotiations on the new agreement that will replace START I (the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty). This issue, along with other key questions regarding bilateral and international relations, was discussed by Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov with American President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during his first visit to Washington after the administration change in the White House. After his visit, he stated that Moscow has presented new proposals on the ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) defense system and rejected Barack Obama’s suggestion to combine this issue with that of Iran.

With the start of “perezagruzka” (“reset”) in Russo-American relations, a problem surfaced which should demonstrate that Moscow and Washington are capable of having a constructive relationship and could find a common ground. This issue is the development of a new agreement which is meant to replace START I. The agreement in place is due to expire in December and as stated by the Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, Russia is not planning on extending it. This means that Russia and the United States need to come up with a new agreement by December. Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama are taking on the responsibility of meeting this deadline, deciding that a new disarmament agreement will be signed this year during their April 1st meeting.

However, in the last few months “Kommersant”’s sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at the State Department alike have expressed doubts that the agreement will be signed before the deadline. During the unofficial talks, Russian officials were laying the blame on the Americans, stating that their counterparts were suspiciously dragging the presentation of the American position on the issue. The Americans have not presented the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with their proposals, promising to have those ready by June (before they promised to present their proposals by April, and then by May). The American side sees this inability to establish working contacts with the Russian negotiators as the main reason for experiencing difficulties. On the other hand, the working relationship is between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the State Department; the Pentagon and the Russia’s Ministry of Defense are not leading consultations among themselves. The Americans lament that there almost aren’t any specialists left at the Ministry of Defense who are qualified to lead the negotiations on disarmament.

Either way, despite the fact that the talks of the inevitability of signing the new agreement have been going on for six months, the negotiations are not even up at the consulting stages. Assistant Minister of Foreign Relations Sergey Ryabkov informed “Kommersant” that the first round of negotiations will take place in Moscow on May 17th. So far, only the preliminary consultation meetings have taken place, including Sergey Lavrov’s visit to the United States last week. Mr. Ryabkov did say that he was not aware of the timeline Americans were planning to follow during the negotiations. However, he is confident that Russia and the United States will be able to sign the ageement before December.

Because neither Russia nor the United States have any official objections to ABMs, the subject was not touched upon in the press conference after the meeting between Hilary Clinton and Sergey Lavrov. The secretary of State noted that there were serious disagreements between Moscow and the United States regarding Georgia, but added that this would not stand in the way of working on other issues. Sergey Lavrov reminded everyone with some satisfaction that Obama’s administration is reviewing previous U.S. policies regarding ABMs. He also said that Moscow recently presented the United States with the new proposals which were first presented by Vladimir Putin in Kennebunkport- the Russian Federation and the United States could develop a common anti-balistic missile system, using Arvamir ( in Krasnodarskiy Kray) and Gabala (in Azerbaizhan) as its elements.

Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak assured “Kommersant” that Moscow’s new proposal only supplements and configures completely to Russia’s previous views on the issue. Sergei Rybakov clarified that “Since the American administration is currently rereviewing its policiess in regards to ABMs, it makes no sense for us to change our position.” According to him, the new Russian proposal reagarding ABMs is based on the idea that Washington and Moscow must do everything possible to ensure that a balistic missile attack does not happen in the foreseeable future. Only after both sides agree that there is no way to avoid such an attack should preperations for an aversion of such an attack begin. In this case, the anti-missile defense shield should be global, developed through a collective effort and based on new geogrraphic principles. Mr. Rybakov did not specify what the new geographic principles might be; he also noted that the use of Kaliningrad for the location of a global ABM defense system instead of Poland is not being discussed. “Kaliningrad was mentioned in a different context,” stated Rybakov, “ there are no geographic or other prerequisites for discussing the installation of the system in Kaliningrad.”

Moscow rejected Barack Obama’s proposal to combine the issue of ABM defense system and the issue of Iran’s nuclear program. In a March letter to Dmitry Medvedev, President Barack Obama wrote that the question of developing the ABM system in Eastern Europe will be taken off of the agenda if the threat from Iran is eliminated, in other words, if Russia starts to cooperate with the United States. In his speech at the Carnegie Center, Sergei Lavrov stated that Russia is not planning to combine discussions on these two issues. Even though the statement from the American politicians that the two issues are interconnected, Moscow considers the ABM defense system a threat to its national security, stated the Russian Minister of Defense.

The climax of Mr. Lavrov’s speech at the Carnegie Center was his answer to Toby Gati’s question, a former special assistant for Russia to President Clinton. She asked what personal mistakes was Russia ready to aknowledge in terms of “perezagruzka,” and what it was ready to fix, since Russia has only talked about the necessity to change America’s political agenda so far. “I never thought about it,” stated Mr. Lavrov, and added that if he will ever think about it, it will only be after retirement. “Wow,” echoed through the room filled with Americans- many experts on Russia.