Abstract
In the early 2013 Russian-U.S. nuclear relations were pervaded by a sense of uncertainty. The Cooperative Threat Reduction program (also known as the Nunn-Lugar Program) and several related agreements were approaching the end of their term; neither party was prepared to seek their extension in their current format. Worries arose that amid the general cooling of Russian-U.S. relations, the two countries would be unable to agree on new bilateral cooperation mechanisms that would better reflect the new situation. Such inability would have very negative repercussions for international cooperation on nuclear security; any further strengthening of the cooperation would have been impossible without the two countries that possess the largest nuclear programs in the world working together.
Fortunately, those worries have now been laid to rest. By the time the Nunn-Lugar Program expired in June 2013, Russia and the United States had signed new agreements that enabled the two countries to continue their cooperation in nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear security on a new basis, with an emphasis on equality. Moscow and Washington then went even further; on September 16, 2013 they signed yet another agreement that could potentially prove even more important than the documents signed in June. The Security Index has discussed that agreement with Mikhail Lysenko, head of the department of international cooperation at the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom.
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