Excerpts From An Undated Letter From Russian President Boris Yeltsin To President William Clinton

Unofficial translation

Dear Bill,

Thank you for your letter of September 8. In turn, I would like to share with you some ideas on
the goals for the forthcoming period.

A solid basis has, indeed, been laid for our further work. Despite skeptic’s forecasts, during the
first six-months of the year — in Helsinki, Paris and Denver — we convincingly demonstrated that
we could achieve results meeting the interests of both our countries and the rest of the world.
Considerable progress was made in ensuring strategic stability — through the prospect of further
reductions in strategic offensive arms and guarantee of steadfastness of the ABM treaty. The
Russia-NATO Founding Act was signed, whose implementation in good faith should contribute to
strengthening mutual security. At Denver, the Eight started, for the first time, to work at full
strength.

But there can be no pauses in Russia-US relations. Most essential now is to consolidate and build
on what has been achieved. Like yourself, I am keeping the implementation of what we have
agreed upon under stringent control. I have given Mr. E.M. Primakov specific instructions on
how to implement the agenda we have jointly laid out. In this context I consider your
forthcoming meeting in New York to be of critical importance.

I am pleased to note that our joint efforts to find solutions that would effectively prevent any
attempt to circumvent the ABM Treaty have yielded good results. Our representatives are to sign
relevant documents within the next few days. As to the procedure of signing, obviously it should
be agreed upon taking into consideration views of all the parties to those agreements.

I believe that the commitment to the treaty which we both reaffirmed during our meeting in
Helsinki should remain a guiding principle of our countries’ attitude toward this most important
Treaty safeguarding strategic stability for years to come. The agreed package of documents on
ABM is a solid basis for that. However, honest and strenuous work will be needed so that no
breakthroughs in technologies could undermine the determination of both states to preserve the
ABM Treaty.

I am convinced that only working together and jointly defining the conformity of specific
programs with the ABM Treaty can we attain that lofty goal. It is all the more important in view
of both countries’ stake in achieving further reduction of strategic offensive arms. Without the
stability of the ABM Treaty stability of offensive arms reductions can not be ensured.

With the package of ABM agreements to be signed we are intensifying our work with the
deputies of the State Duma for the ratification of START-2 and are ready to continue dialogue
with the US on further reductions of strategic offensive arms as we agreed upon in Helsinki.

You and I have done a lot to ensure that former harsh strategic confrontation between our
countries is steadily replaced by cooperation, trust and predictability. In this regard, I believe that
in the context of a significant progress made by both sides in strengthening the ABM Treaty and
in reducing strategic offensive arms we should not allow the development of new military
technologies that can undermine the strategic stability.

Let me be frank with you. We are alarmed by the US military’s intention to develop a whole
gamut of anti-satellite weapons systems. The aim is obvious — to develop a capability to destroy
space surveillance and control systems of other countries, including, of course, the Russian ones.
That means that missile attack warning and surveillance systems that ensure the required
transparency, and therefore predictability and stability may be jeopardized. At one time we
possessed an anti-satellite capability. We renounced it as soon as we realized the futility a first
strike notion. Within our military doctrine there is no place for such systems which constitute an
absolutely destabilizing factor.

I suggest that our experts should carry on an in-depth and open dialogue on those issues. The
immediate goal is to agree on the ban on any systems destroying strategic warning satellites.
Normally they stay in high orbits and such an agreement can be reached quickly enough. Then the
problem of how to deal with possible destabilization in low orbits should be tackled as well. We
are ready to work together. We do not rule out joint projects, say, to ensure ecological safety in
the case of fall of large space objects — satellites and even asteroids.

However, all our work should be organized in such a way as to ensure that none of us feels that
his security is being undermined — otherwise, we will inevitably revert to the Cold War logic which
we together have worked so hard to destroy.

* * *

Sincerely,

B. YELTSIN