On April 8, 2010, the day when the New START Treaty was signed, PIR Center in collaboration with the Ploughshares Fund established the Sustainable Partnership with Russia (SuPR) Group. The SuPR Group’s main objective is to support continuing and long-lasting success in the efforts by the Russian Federation and the United States to work as partners on two of the most important issues on the global security agenda: nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament.
All members of the SuPR Group are leading experts on U.S.-Russian relations, nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. The Group also includes one media representative from each side to make its work transparent for the public in both countries.
On February 2-3, 2011, the SuPR Group met in Gstaad, Switzerland, to discuss the next steps in nuclear disarmament. SuPR Group members also discussed how both countries could better work together on the most urgent regional nuclear nonproliferation challenge – the Middle East. As a result of the meeting, several recommendations to the U.S. and Russian presidents were formulated. The expert recommendations sent to the White House and Kremlin received substantial press attention and the expert responses from Mikhail Ulyanov, Director of The Department for security and disarmament, and Director of Russian Institute of Strategic Studies, Gen. (retired) Leonid Reshetnikov.
On December 6-7, 2011 in Washington D.C. PIR Center together with Ploughshares Fund held meeting of Sustainable Partnership with Russia(SuPR) Group on the “Future of the Russian-US Strategic Dialogue: Beyond Deterrence – Building a Sustainable Agenda”. At the meeting, presentations were also made by Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass destruction, Proliferation and Terrorism Gary Samore, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Russia in the USA SergeyKislyak. The SuPR members also held a briefing with top US experts on international security issues and bilateral relations.
On March 14, 2012 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in his public speech gave positive assessment of SuPR work. He mentioned “I would like to emphasize the initiative of PIR Center and Ploughshares Fund to establish Sustainable Partnership with Russia (SuPR) Group. On February 2011 the SuPR Group held the meeting, afterwards the expert recommendations were prepared. These are competent and professional recommendations. They were sent to the President and now we examine these ideas”.
SuPR Group members
Additional Materials of SuPR
Photo gallery
