Putin Vows to Rid Russia of Excess Nuclear Weapons

A Russian state with fewer nuclear weapons, laws that are firmly enforced and a working market system: It sounds like the Russia that Western leaders hoped for, vainly, throughout the chaotic years under former President Boris N. Yeltsin.

His successor, Vladimir V. Putin, said Friday that he plans to make it happen. In his first substantial comments concerning policy since being elected Sunday, Putin expressed his determination to rid Russia of excess nuclear weapons while improving the effectiveness of Russia’s strategic missiles.

He said he wants to push the stalled Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START II, through the lower house of parliament, the Duma, where the Communists and leftist forces have lost their majority and the power to block the 1993 agreement.

“We are setting the task to free the world from piles of excessive weapons,” Putin said as he visited the closed nuclear city of Snezhinsk, which was known as Chelyabinsk-70 in Soviet times.

Putin’s words during his first post-election trip were likely to be welcomed in the West, where his tough preelection rhetoric and his calls to rebuild Russia’s military and create a strong state sent out tremors of alarm that he might lead the country down an authoritarian path.

He said Friday that the West had misread his calls for a strong state, explaining that this didn’t mean the growth of the armed forces and security services.

“What we are talking about is a strong state where rules are secured by laws and their observation is guaranteed,” he said.

In other messages likely to be greeted favorably in the West, Putin repeated his pledge to fight corruption and affirmed his commitment to pro-market economic policies.

With speculation rife in Russia about the makeup of a new government--which will be announced after Putin’s inauguration in early May--the president-elect didn’t rule out Communists participating, although his requirement that any government member support pro-market policies would appear to effectively exclude them.

Putin has taken a generally low-key approach in the week since his election, and his comments Friday provide the clearest picture yet of a leader likely to meet with Western approval concerning key issues such as pro-market policies and cuts to nuclear weapons. Concerns remain about his commitment to human rights and press freedom.

“Russia is holding, and will continue to hold, talks on further cuts in strategic offensive weapons aimed at making the world safer and ridding it of stockpiles of arms,” Putin said. “Our aim is to make our nuclear weapons complex more safe and effective.”

He also indicated his desire to see a conversion of the nuclear industry to civilian purposes, but he ruled out automatic staff cuts.

The city of Snezhinsk symbolizes much of what worries the West about Russia’s nuclear security. Snezhinsk and cities like it were havens of privilege in the Soviet era, but living standards have declined sharply.

The chaos in nuclear towns across Russia has raised fears of corrupt trade in nuclear materials and the risk of defections by ill-paid Russian scientists to nations wishing to acquire nuclear weapons.

One Snezhinsk scientist interviewed on the state-owned ORT television network said living conditions had improved slightly in the last two years but are nothing compared with those in the West.

Walking on the streets of Snezhinsk, Putin approached a group of women, who delightedly congratulated him on his election win. The trip originally was planned for before the presidential election but was postponed.

During Putin’s campaign, as he sought to appeal to nationalists, liberals and Communists simultaneously, his often-contradictory statements were difficult to read--although Western leaders who met him described him as a man they could work with.

But although his remarks about restructuring the nuclear industry and cutting strategic weapons were encouraging, there may be a subtle warning to the United States in Putin’s comment that he is determined to improve the effectiveness of Russia’s nuclear deterrent.

U.S. efforts to develop a national missile defense shield have alarmed Moscow, which fears that such a system would undermine its nuclear deterrent. Russian officials have bitterly opposed the proposal, which would require renegotiation of the 28-year-old Antiballistic Missile Treaty.

Putin’s attitude toward the missile shield and the ABM treaty is one of the key questions shaping up in America’s relationship with Russia.

In another comment that might raise a note of caution in the U.S., Putin also supported Russian sales of nuclear technology internationally.

Washington has been highly critical of Russia’s construction of a nuclear power station in Bushehr, Iran, arguing that the Iranians could use the technology to develop nuclear weapons.

Russia has dismissed that view, and the Nuclear Ministry announced Friday that Moscow plans to build three more nuclear power stations at Iran’s request.

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