Three days before opening of official U.S.-Russian consultations on the new arms control treaty, Sergei Ryabkov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, gave a detailed interview in which he talked about details of the Russian position. Nothing particularly new, but this detail was interesting - asked about the future of the Moscow treaty (a.k.a. SORT), Ryabkov categorically said that this treaty cannot exist after expiration of START: "Without START, the Moscow treaty is a meaningless text."
While the Moscow treaty is supposed to rely on START for verification procedures, I don't think that it is technically correct to say that the Moscow treaty does not exist without START. It has a separate ceilings and its own counting rules of sort - the "operationally deployed nuclear warheads". Of course, Russia never liked this concept and never accepted the U.S. definition of it. This probably explains why Ryabkov was so emphatic about this issue - he is concerned that when START is gone this would be the only "legally-binding" definition that is out there, whether Russia likes it or not.
I would say that this proves again that keeping START with its definitions and rules in force is actually good idea. Russia should have thought twice before rejecting the option of extending the treaty.
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Pavel,
The actual Moscow Treaty term is "Strategic Nuclear Warhead." The U.S. implements the treaty using the term "Operationally Deployed Strategic Nuclear Warheads." The Russian Federation is free to implement the treaty in its own way. FYI, the Russians use the same definition.
The actual term is, in fact, this:
"strategic nuclear warheads, as stated by the President of the United States of America on November 13, 2001 and as stated by the President of the Russian Federation on November 13, 2001 and December 13, 2001"
What this means is a bit complicated. President Bush said on November 13, 2001 (emphasis added):
"... the United States will reduce our operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to a level between 1,700 and 2,200 over the next decade, a level fully consistent with American security."
which introduces "operationally deployed nuclear warheads" into the treaty. At least on the U.S. side. As I understand, the U.S. position is that Russia is free to interpret the treaty differently if it wants - this would not affect the U.S. understanding of the term. Putin, of course, did not mention "operationally deployed" anything.