Overview

• Lawmakers approved the government’s bill to denounce the 2000 agreement and all related protocols governing financing, liability, and disposal methods for 34 tons of weapons‑grade plutonium from each side.
• The government submitted the denunciation initiative to the Duma in July 2025.
• The explanatory note cites U.S. sanctions, the Ukraine support law, NATO expansion, increased U.S. military presence in Eastern Europe, and a U.S. bid to alter disposal methods without Russia’s consent.
• Officials invoke Article 62 of the Vienna Convention on a fundamental change of circumstances and state that none of Russia’s conditions for resuming the pact were met, including repeal of the Magnitsky Act and the Ukraine Freedom Support Act, lifting sanctions with compensation, and reducing NATO infrastructure in states that joined after September 1, 2000.
• Russia’s 2016 suspension kept the designated plutonium outside weapons activities, and Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said the step serves national interests as the Duma also took up a Kuwait extradition treaty and a health‑workforce bill.