Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday sent the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with the United States to Parliament for ratification.
Mr. Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama signed the treaty last month in the Czech capital, Prague.
Mr. Obama submitted the treaty to the U.S. Senate for approval earlier this month.
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Mr. Medvedev urged Russian lawmakers on Friday to ratify the new START simultaneously with the U.S. Senate, “not earlier, but not later either.”
“The Treaty is a synergy of political wills and powers, therefore we should synchronise ratification to strengthen mutual trust,” Mr. Medvedev said at a meeting with MPs from the ruling United Russia party.
The new START treaty, which replaces the 1991 START treaty, would cut U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals by 30 per cent over the next seven years, leaving each side with about 1,500 strategic nuclear weapons.
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In a joint statement issued on May 14 in Washington, Russia and the United States hailed the new START as finally relegating the Cold War to the past.
“It lays the foundation for qualitatively new bilateral relations in the strategic military field and, in effect, marks the final end of the ‘Cold War' period,” said the statement.