Documents

Press releases

Publications

START Treaties

Start I

Start II

Start III

Nuclear Disarmament and Arms Control – Using the New Momentum in the Debate for a “Global Zero”

Resolution of ELDR Congress, Helsinki, October 13-15, 2010

submitted by FDP, Germany, and YABLOKO, Russia

The European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, convening in Helsinki, Finland, on 13-15 October 2010:

ELDR welcomes the new drive in the debate on nuclear disarmament and arms control that has been neglected for too long. This progress is reflected in particular in President Obama’s speech in Prague and also in the debate on the declining importance of nuclear weapons laid down in NATO’s new strategic concept and in the successful conclusion of the 2010 Review Conference on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)... MORE

European liberals’ congress adopts a resolution of nuclear disarmament motioned jointly by German FDP and YABLOKO

Press Release, October 15, 2010

Today, on October 15, the Congress of the European Liberals and Democrats party, ELDR, (Helsinki, October 14-15) adopted resolution Nuclear Disarmament and Arms Control – Using the New Momentum in the Debate for a “Global Zero” motioned jointly by the German FDP party and YABLOKO. “ELDR perceives nuclear disarmament and arms control as a corner stone of the global security architecture. ELDR explicitly commits itself to the establishment of a world free of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. However, ELDR wants the progress in the current debate to have an impact on conventional disarmament,” runs the resolution...

...Yesterday on October 14, YABLOKO’s leader Sergei Mitrokhin representing the party at the ELDR Congress met with Ambassador of Russia in Finland Alexander Rumyantsev for discussion of some issues of Russia-Finland relations. In addition, Mitrokhin and Rumyantsev (who had previously headed the Russian Ministry for Atomic Energy in 2001-2005) discussed the problems of the nuclear energy sector.

Presentation of Alexei Arbatov’s book “The Equation of Security

Press Release, April 5, 2010

Presentation of a book “The Equation of Security” by Dr.Alexei Arbatov, member of YABLOKO’s Political Committee, head of the International Security Centre with the Russian Academy of Sciences, took place in YABLOKO’s Moscow office today. YABLOKO’s leader Dr.Sergei Mitrokhin and member of Political Committee and the founder of the party Dr.Grigory Yavlinsky participated in the presentation.

The book offers an assessment of the international security system and the place of the Russian Federation in the present changeable concept of international relations. Some of the key postulates of the book lie in the decision of YABLOKO’s Political Committee “On Russia’s Foreign Policies”...

On Iran’s Nuclear Problem

Resolution by the Political Committee of the YABLOKO party. October 6, 2009

The Russian United Democratic Party YABLOKO expresses its deep concern in view of the new aggravation of the situation around Iran’s nuclear problem.
A secret construction of the second Iran’s uranium enrichment plant, which the world public has learned about, shows that Teheran continues its course towards challenging the UN, as well as regional and global security. New tests of ballistic missiles, including medium-range Shahab-3, have shifted the crisis into a dangerous phase...

Iran’s procession of nuclear weapons presents considerable threats for the national interests of Russia, the USA, the EU countries and the entire civilised world. Russia can not allow being turned into a target of nuclear blackmail from another neighbouring state...

The Russian United Democratic Party YABLOKO thinks that it is high time for Russia to take a principled position, stop lulling itself about Iran’s intentions, as well as break Iran’s tactics of playing on discrepancies between the great superpowers and using Russia in its own interests contradicting to the international security goals...

Grigory Yavlinsky: implementation of the agreements between the US and the RF presidents will open doors to Europe for Russia
Press Release, May 28, 2002
The leader of the Yabloko faction of the State Duma of the RF Grigory Yavlinsky thinks that the agreements reached during the Moscow summit of the US and the RF presidents "will open doors to Europe" for Russia.

Grigory Yavlinsky stresses the importance of the Russian-American agreements signed in Moscow
Press Release, May 25, 2002
Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the Yabloko faction of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, thinks that the fact that agreements signed during the Moscow summit of presidents of the RF and the USA Vladimir Putin and George Bush are subject to mandatory implementation represents "a victory of the Russian diplomacy".

The YABLOKO party: the treaty on a reduction in offensive weapons meets new security requirements and the new spirit of cooperation between Russia and the USA
Press Release, May 15, 2002
The Russian Democratic Party YABLOKO supports the treaty on a reduction in offensive weapons that has to be signed during the Russian-American summit in Moscow on May 23-26, 2002.

An Objective View of the START-1 treaty

By Alexei Arbatov. March 11, 2010

START-1 does not affect the viability of Russia's ground-mobile missiles. Authoritative representatives of the RVSN (the former and new commanders, the former and new chiefs of the MoD 4th Central Research Institute, and others), and there are no grounds for trusting them less than to Colonel Belov, Generals Ivashov and Chervov, or Marshal Yazov, who are not even missilemen.

Patching Things Up at Putin's Picnic
By Grigory Yavlinsky, The Moscow Times, June 6, 2003.
The top-level meetings held in St. Petersburg last weekend produced positive results for Russia, Europe and the entire world.

Liberal Leader Expresses Satisfaction With U.S.-Russia Summit Results
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, May 25, 2003
Yabloko faction leader Grigorii Yavlinsky told RFE/RL's Russian Service on 25 May that he considers the declaration on Russian-American strategic cooperation signed last week by Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin an even bigger achievement than the new strategic-arms reduction treaty that they also signed.

A Nuclear Bomb in Stars and Stripes. Deputies Ordered to reduce them
Interview with Alexei Arbatov by Marina Ozerova, Moskovskiy Komsomolets, May 15, 2003
Yesterday the State Duma ratified the Treaty on the Reduction of Offensive Potential, which was signed a year ago by Presidents Putin and Bush.

DUMA DEPUTY LINKS RATIFICATION OF MOSCOW TREATY TO IRAQ SETTLEMENT
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, April 23, 2003
Arbatov noted that the conflict over Iraq "has exposed differences in the two countries' approaches to solving key problems of international security and stability."

Russia May Ratify Arms Reduction Treaty in May
Rosbalt, April 16, 2003
The treaty will, above all, limit US forces, which are considerably stronger than Russia's, explained Lukin. He emphasized that Russia had insisted on a written form of the form, whereas the US intended to "confirm the agreement with a handshake."

Top Russian MPs advocate early ratification of the US arms reduction treaty
ITAR-TASS, April 8, 2003
There is no point in delaying ratification of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty [SORT], also known as the Moscow Treaty between Russia and the United States, irrespective of developments in Iraq, according to prominent members of the State Duma, or the lower house of Russian parliament.

The State Duma Analyses the Strategic Reductions Treaty
Gazeta, by Ivan Yegorov, Vitaly Mikhailov and Anastasia Matveyeva. October 2, 2002
Boris Nemtsov, leader of the Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS), proposes that all democratic forces agree to back one candidate for president after the parliamentary election in 2003. The formula is simple. Each party nominates its own candidate. The Duma election shows who has won. All democratic forces support the candidate whose party gathered the most votes, Russia and the USA have launched the ratification of the Treaty on Strategic Arms Reductions, which was signed in an attempt to fill in the vacuum left by the US withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty and refusal to ratify START-2. Hearings in Russia and the USA are being held behind closed doors, but this newspaper has learned some details of the recent State Duma hearing.

How Will Russia Spend the $20 Billion Promised at the G8 Summit in Canada?
Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye No. 23, July 2002
The recent G8 summit in the Canadian town of Kananaskis decided to allocate substantial funds to the programme for eliminating Russian stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Deputy Chairman of the  Defense Committee of the State Duma Alexei Arbatov talks with Salavat Suleimanov about eliminating weapons and appropriating the money.

Some in Russia skeptical about the G8 decision to help the Kremlin dispose of its deadly Soviet-era arsenal
By MARA D. BELLABY, Associated Press, June 28, 2002
MOSCOW - The decision by the world's wealthiest industrial nations to help Russia dispose of its arsenal of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons won support from some quarters here on Friday, but angered others as a sign of Russia capitulating to the West.

START III Putin's Breakthrough, says Russian Reform Activist
RIA Novosti. May 24, 2002
MOSCOW, May 24 [from RIA Novosti's Arina Dovgan] - Russian-US summiteers have signed a strategic offensive armaments reduction treaty. It came as a breakthrough for President Vladimir Putin, considering that a mere six months ago the USA was refusing to sign any documents at all, says Grigory Yavlinsky, prominent Russian politician and leader of Yabloko, a major reformist parliamentary group.

Senior lawmaker predicts swift ratification of U.S.-Russian arms deal in Russian parliament
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer, May 21, 2002
MOSCOW - Despite nationalists' grumbling that Russia caved in to the United States to strike a nuclear arms deal set to be signed during this week's presidential summit, a senior lawmaker on Tuesday predicted its trouble-free ratification by the Russian parliament.

The Door to Europe is in Washington
Grigory Yavlinsky Obschaya Gazeta, May 16, 2002
After September 11, 200, Russia's foreign policy abruptly changed. Despite the policy carried out in summer 2001, symbolised by Kim Chen Ir's travel by armoured train across Russia, despite the opinion of the so-called political elite, Vladimir Putin unreservedly supported the USA in their fight against Ben Laden's terrorists and the Taliban.

War-Head Headache (How can Russia respond to NMD plans?)
Interview with Alexei Arbatov, Obshaya Gazeta, June 28, 2001
Quite a few foreign mass media publications continue to voice their bitterness and disappointment as President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation has allegedly dashed the international community's hopes of a new era in Russian-US relations after the Ljubljana summit. In other words, Putin has made three statements over the past seven days, referring to Russian readiness to beef up its nuclear forces in response to America's NMD (National Missile Defence) programme. Alexei Arbatov, deputy chairman of the State Duma's Defence Committee, had this to say on the issue.

Russian military doctrine and strategic nuclear forces to the year 2000 and beyond
By Alexei Arbatov
Present Russian military doctrine is based on a document approved at a Security Council session on 2 November, 1993. On that same day, the document, "Principle Guidance on the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation" ( PGMD) was officially legalized by Presidential decree No. 1833 (1). Whatever the outcome of continuing work on its revised version, there is reason to expect its main points will remain the same.

Carnegie Moscow Center-sponsored seminar on START-ABM Treaties
By Alexei Arbatov
In the finest traditions of the young Russian parliament, I will start by disagreeing with your basic premise. I think that the forthcoming June summit will not bring any breakthroughs. This, of course, does not mean that breakthroughs will come after the U.S. presidential election. On the other hand, one cannot exclude a breakthrough in the next year, after the new President moves into the White House.

The next steps in arms control: a Russian perspective
By Alexei Arbatov
Putin can control the Russian domestic environment and he can provide consistency for arms control agreements, which Russia may engage in with other countries. Neither of these two characteristics were true of the Yeltsin Regime, during the 1990s. That is good news and certainly a very important change. But there is bad news, and let me talk about it in much greater detail.

ADM's David Johnson talks with Alexei Arbatov, member of the Russian Parliament, for "Russia's Nuclear Crisis"
Interview with Alexei Arbatov

Opening statement at the Carnegie roundtable discussion
Madeleine K. Albright
I am delighted to speak with such a distinguished group and I want to thank you each for giving me this opportunity today. As a student of Russian history and society, I appreciate the important role of Russian thinkers and intellectuals. To a large degree, you shape the way Russians view the West. I occasionally look at the Russian press myself and have seen what some of you have written, as well as what has been written about me. I am glad to say that I've been called worse things in the American press than my Russian nickname "Gaspozha Stal."