Putin puts on hold plutonium deal with US

The deal, which was signed in 2000 and went into force under a 2010 agreement, was being suspended due to ‘the emergence of a threat to strategic stability and as a result of unfriendly actions by the United States of America towards the Russian Federation’, the preamble to the decree said.

It also said that the United States was unable ‘to ensure the implementation of its obligations to utilise surplus weapons-grade plutonium’.

The 2010 agreement, signed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, called on each side to dispose of 34 metric tonnes of plutonium by burning it in nuclear reactors.

Clinton said at the time that that was enough material to make almost 17,000 nuclear weapons. Both sides then viewed the deal as a sign of increased cooperation between the two former adversaries towards a joint goal of nuclear non-proliferation.

Ties between Moscow and Washington plunged to freezing point when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and gave support to pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine after protests in Kiev toppled pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich.

Washington led a campaign to impose Western economic sanctions on Russia for its role in the Ukraine crisis.