Statement by Ambassador Alexey Borodavkin, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the Conference on Disarmament

Thematic discussions on nuclear disarmament (agenda items 1 and 2 "Cessation of the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament" and "Prevention of nuclear war, including all related matters"),
Geneva, 22 May 2012

Mr. President,

The Russian Delegation is grateful to You and Your P-6 colleagues for organizing thematic discussions. We see them as being useful for specifying and clarifying country's positions on key agenda issues and for working out practical consensual Program of Work.

Russia has repeatedly stated its commitment to a goal of ridding the world of nuclear weapons. We regard the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as one of the major instruments for achieving that goal. For over 40 years of its existence this international legal instrument proved to be of unique value and indispensable for moving ahead with nuclear disarmament, promoting nuclear non-proliferation and free access of States to "peaceful atom". This was the point made by many participants of the recent 2015 NPT RevCon First Preparatory Committee. 

It was the NPT with obligations enshrined in its Article VI that became a major driver of progress achieved over the last decades in the area of limitation and reduction of nuclear weapons.

We have fully implemented the American-Soviet Treaty on the Elimination of the Intermediate-range and Shorter-range Missiles (hereinafter – the INF Treaty) signed on 8 December 1987 which made it possible to eliminate the whole class of nuclear-missile weapons. As a follow-up to the INF Treaty Russia proposed to develop an arrangement rendering the Treaty's regime global. We believe that the implementation of such an initiative would give a new impetus to ensuring global and regional stability.

Our country has fully fulfilled its obligations under the Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (hereinafter – START) that opened a new page of coordinated and verifiable reductions of the US and Russian strategic offensive arms. Alongside with the US and Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine were also parties to START. The responsible choice of Minsk, Astana and Kiev to remove stage-by-stage nuclear weapons from their territories and to accede to the NPT as non-nuclear States has strengthened their security and had a positive impact on strategic stability in general. On 4 December 2009, in their joint statement the Presidents of the US and Russia confirmed the security assurances for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine provided for in the Budapest Memorandums of 5 December 1994.

The Moscow Treaty on the Strategic Offensive Reductions (SORT) concluded by the US and Russia in 2002 became another contribution of our country to nuclear disarmament. In accordance with its provisions, by 31 December 2012 the US and Russia undertook to reduce the limits of their strategic nuclear warheads to 1,700-2,200 units, i.e. approximately to one third of the aggregate limit provided for in START. These obligations have been fulfilled.

Along with strategic nuclear weapons the Russian Federation has significantly reduced the number of its non-strategic nuclear weapons. Now the non-strategic nuclear potential of Russia does not exceed 25% of the amount possessed by the USSR in 1991. At the same time, all Russia's non-strategic nuclear weapons are no longer deployed and located exclusively within the national territory and mostly in centralized storage facilities with appropriate security regime.

We have repeatedly called on the other countries possessing non-strategic weapons to follow the example of the Russian Federation and to withdraw it to their territories, to eliminate all pieces of infrastructure created abroad for rapid deployment of such weapons and to cease training with participation of non-nuclear States. We are convinced that such steps would contribute to strengthening international security and stability. They would also be helpful in cleaning up the ways to further reductions and limitations of nuclear arsenals.

Implementation of the Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms is the main priority in the field of nuclear disarmament. The Treaty replaced both the START which had expired on 4 December 2009 and the 2002 Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions. According to the new Treaty, each Party shall reduce and limit its Strategic Offensive Arms (SOA), so that seven years after the entry into force of the Treaty and thereafter, their aggregate numbers, do not exceed:

(a)  700, for deployed inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and heavy bombers;

(b)  1,550, for warheads thereof;

(c) 800, for deployed and non-deployed ICBM and SLBM launchers, as well as heavy bombers.

Thus, the US and Russia clearly demonstrated once again their aspiration to achieve large-scale reductions of SOA. The parties agreed to cut their aggregate number of warheads (the "ceiling" under SORT – 2,200 warheads) by two thirds and reduce the aggregate number of strategic delivery vehicles (the "ceiling" under SORT – 1,600 delivery vehicles; no limit for delivery vehicles under the SORT) by more than a half.

At present, the US and Russia are working according to a plan on the implementation of the Treaty. We believe that the experience gained with the START will be useful in determining conditions, contents and rates of further reductions and limitations of strategic offensive arms.

We attach great importance to the Final Document of 2010 NPT RevCon in the context of further steps in the field of nuclear disarmament. We believe that it had laid a good ground for developing multilateral approaches in this domain. We assume that its provisions should be implemented in a comprehensive and interactive way.

It is becoming more and more obvious that the efforts of two, though leading, nuclear powers are already not enough to move forward towards nuclear disarmament. At the same time, comprehensive and complete elimination of nuclear weapons will be problematic if the process is limited to the P5 States.

Russia is ready to continue to move forward towards verifiable and irreversible reductions of nuclear weapons in accordance with obligations under Article VI of the NPT, though this task can only be accomplished within a global step by step process. This goal can be achieved only by using a comprehensive approach based on strengthened strategic stability and given the following conditions:

– continued nuclear disarmament of all States possessing nuclear capabilities, their gradual involvement in the efforts already made in this area by the US and Russia;

– prevention of placement of weapons in outer space;

– provision of guarantees of the absence of "upload potential" in States;

– inadmissibility of building-up conventional SOA (establishment of the so-called "compensatory potential");

– refusal of unilateral development of strategic missile defense systems which is fraught with erosion of strategic stability and improper functioning of the regime of checks and balances that ensure global parity;

– elimination of quantity and quality imbalances in conventional weapons coupled with the resolution of other international problems, including settlement of regional conflicts;

– entry into force of the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty;

– reliable viability of key multilateral disarmament and non-proliferation instruments.

Lately, more and more nuclear disarmament initiatives are put forward. They contain a lot of elements that are consistent with the Russian approaches. We pay due attention to such initiatives and maintain a constructive dialogue on this matter with all the interested parties.

Mr. President,

We are willing to share our considerations and approaches to other aspects of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation in the course of further thematic discussions.