Khaberni - Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Monday that terminates an agreement with the United States for disposing of plutonium, which was already suspended and aimed to prevent both sides from developing further nuclear weapons.
The move comes amid a cooling of relations between Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, who has expressed increasing annoyance at his Russian counterpart's refusal to accept a peace deal in Ukraine.
Trump canceled plans to hold a peace summit with Putin last week, considering it a "waste of time" and ruled out setting a new date for it unless the Russian president sends messages indicating that he would be open to reaching an agreement.
The "Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement" signed in 2000 and amended in 2010 required Moscow and Washington to each reduce their cold war-era plutonium stocks by 34 tons and to only use it for nuclear energy.
U.S. officials estimated that the agreement would remove the materials needed to produce approximately 17,000 nuclear weapons.
Putin had already suspended Russia's participation in the agreement in 2016 when relations were strained with then-President Barack Obama.
The law that Putin signed on Monday, which was approved by Russian lawmakers earlier this month, represents an official withdrawal from the agreement.
Western leaders have accused Russia of brandishing nuclear weapons since the military operation it began in Ukraine in February 2022.
Days after the operation began, Putin placed his nuclear forces on high alert, and last year the Russian president signed a decree lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.
Putin announced on Sunday that Russia had successfully conducted a final test of a nuclear-powered cruise missile.
