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Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin said on Tuesday that the main obstacle to replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, is Washington’s plan to build a missile defense system,

To restore that balance, he said, Russia must develop new offensive weapons to counter the missile shield. Another solution, he said, would be for the United States to provide Russia with data on its missile defense plans in exchange for data on Russian weapons development.

Since the spring, Russian officials have sought to tie successful START talks to changes to the U.S. missile defense plan -- especially proposed sites in Poland and the Czech Republic that Russia viewed as a serious threat.

Officials from both countries say the last-minute problems center not so much on numbers – the new lower ceiling of strategic nuclear weapons the accord would establish – but rather on issues like verification and the intrusiveness of inspections for confirming treaty compliance. Russia maintains that the verification regime of the original START was too onerous and is no longer needed.

The trouble in reaching an accord on a START 1 follow-on may also portend a steep climb ahead for President Obama’s vision of a world free of nuclear weapons – a goal whose next way station is expected to be a summit on international nuclear security that Mr. Obama has called for April in Washington.

Officials from both countries say the last-minute problems center not so much on numbers – the new lower ceiling of strategic nuclear weapons the accord would establish – but rather on issues like verification and the intrusiveness of inspections for confirming treaty compliance. Russia maintains that the verification regime of the original START was too onerous and is no longer needed.

Russia's powerful prime minister, ex-President Vladimir Putin, may have just tossed a wrench into the sensitive last-minute negotiations aimed at finalizing a new US-Russian strategic arms reduction deal early in the New Year. "The problem is that our American partners are developing missile defenses, and we are not," Mr. Putin complained Tuesday. "In order to maintain balance, without developing the antimissile system just like the US is doing, we have to develop an offensive combat power system."

Putin's demand is that the US should provide full data on any antimissile tests it conducts, or else Russia will withhold information about its tests of new offensive weapon systems. "There is almost no chance the Americans will agree to this," says Mr. Golts.

Iran is not known to have the technology to fabricate its own fuel rods. France and Argentina are practically alone in being able to supply the specific fuel needed by Iran's small reactor to continue producing medical isotopes in Tehran.

Obama administration statements "strongly suggest to me that we have their procurement network, at least a part of it, pretty well penetrated

Reuters reported on Wednesday from Moscow that Russia would join any "consensus" on more sanctions against Iran, which US officials suggest will be a top priority in the New Year if no compromise deal is reached.

Russia's only Caucasus ally, Armenia, has suffered badly from the cutoff of land transport links. Moscow maintains a cold war-era military garrison in Armenia, reportedly with more than 1,000 troops, and has had chronic difficulties resupplying them."Russia's ties with Armenia are important, and so it would be of some benefit to Russia if it could normalize the transport links," says Alexei Makarkin, deputy director of the independent Center for Political Technologies in Moscow.

A group of Senators is telling the White House that it will have little or no chance of success unless it also moves ahead with nuclear-warhead modernization.

The stakes here aren't merely whether Mr. Obama can get his treaties ratified; they concern the credibility of the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Mr. Obama says he wants to stop nuclear proliferation but he will only encourage it if our allies begin to believe that the U.S. arsenal is either too small or too unreliable to protect them.