Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama are to sign a declaration on a new nuclear arms reduction treaty on April 1st, a top Kremlin aide said today.
At the meeting in London, the two leaders will also sign a general declaration on US-Russian relations, Medvedev aide Sergei Prikhodko said.
"The two documents will have practical significance for the start of talks on a number of issues in the region and, we hope, on the issue of arms limitations," Interfax quoted Mr Prikhodko as saying.
Russian officials have said that signing a successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start 1) is a priority in relations with the new US administration, which has pledged to "reset" ties with Russia after they reached post-Cold War lows under former president George W. Bush.
The Start Treaty, signed in July 1991 by George Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, led to the largest bilateral reductions of nuclear weapons in history.
It was the result of nearly a decade of sporadic talks between the United States and the Soviet Union in the final years of the Cold War.
Start stipulates that neither side can deploy more than 6,000 nuclear warheads and no more than 1,600 strategic delivery vehicles, which includes intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines and bomber aircraft.
At the time of agreement, the United States had developed more sophisticated ways to deliver warheads, but the Soviet Union had a larger arsenal of weapons.
Implementation of Start was complicated by the break-up of the Soviet Union, although Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan all agreed to transfer their nuclear missiles to Russia.
Start was the follow-up to the earlier Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (Salt) that dated from 1969-79.
By 2001, the tightly regulated inspection regime and the targets that Start imposed on both the United States and Russia had been met.
Start due to expire in December 2009, unless both parties agree to either extend it for another five years or can agree on its replacement.
A subsequent Start II Treaty that would have restricted the number of independent warheads that can be fixed atop ballistic missiles never entered force.