RUSSIA - June 14 - START-2 Treaty Abandoned After US Quits ABM Treaty.

The Foreign Ministry says in a statement that Moscow is no longer bound by the 1993 START-2 accord that outlawed multiple-warhead missiles and other especially destabilising weapons in the strategic arsenals of Russia and the US. (The move comes one day after Washington formally abandoned the 1972 ABM Treaty). Even as the Foreign Ministry accuses the US of wrecking the arms control process, the Defence Ministry says there are no grounds to retaliate against Washington for abandoning the ABM Treaty. Other senior military officials told Interfax that some nuclear rockets might be kept in service longer by Moscow because of the US action, but that no major shifts in the country's strategic posture were envisioned. Vladimir Dvorkin, a retired major general who heads the Centre for Problems of Strategic Nuclear Forces, said in an interview: "There's no point in talking about this treaty any more, just as there is no point in talking about the ABM Treaty". Others noted that the new nuclear arms accord that US Pres. Bush and Pres. Putin signed in May already would reduce each side's warhead stocks to between 1,750 and 2,200, well below the START-2 levels. In that respect, START-2 was an outmoded treaty even before Moscow buried it. (The START-2 Treaty, while a landmark in arms control accords, had never officially been binding on either side. The treaty proposed to slash US and Russian strategic nuclear stockpiles over 10 years by nearly half, to no more than 3,500 warheads on each side. It would have eliminated land-based multiple-warhead missiles, or MIRVs, and so-called heavy intercontinental missiles. The US Congress did not approve START-2 until 1996 and refused a protocol that would have extended its implementation deadline. The Duma approved the treaty and the new deadline in 2000, but only on the condition that Washington did not abandon the ABM accord).