MOSCOW - In a bold new arms control gambit, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Russia and the United States could make drastic cuts in their nuclear arsenals far beyond existing proposals.
Putin, who is pushing to downsize a huge and inefficient military that Russia can no longer afford, said the former Cold War opponents need not stop at the 1,500-warhead limit Russia has been advocating up until now. He did not propose any specific numbers.
''It's not the limit. We are ready to consider lower levels in the future,'' he said in a statement issued by the Kremlin. ''We don't see reasons which would hamper further deep cuts in strategic offensive weapons. There should be no pause in nuclear disarmament.''
Putin said the 1,500 level could be achieved by 2008, but only if the United States does not go ahead with a national missile defense system that Russia says would undermine nuclear deterrence.
In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Philip Reeker, said ''we read with interest'' Putin's statement, but declined to say if the Clinton administration was ready to negotiate further cutbacks with the Russians.
''We certainly share the Russian interest in lower levels of strategic nuclear arms,'' Reeker said. ''That's something we've worked on for quite some time now and we want to proceed in a manner that will also allow us to address new threats.''
After years of delay, Russia's parliament in April ratified the START II arms reduction treaty, which would roughly halve arsenals to about 3,500 warheads each. As soon as the treaty goes into effect, the sides have tentatively agreed to go ahead with a START III treaty that envisages further cuts, to 2,000 to 2,500 warheads.
Analysts say the United States has roughly 7,500 nuclear weapons, while Russia has between 6,000 and 7,000. START II has not taken effect because the Russian parliament added conditions not yet ratified by the U.S. Senate.
The cash-strapped Russian government is under intense pressure to cut military spending, which makes up one third of the federal budget even though Russia spends only about $5.1 billion on defense - compared with annual U.S. defense spending of around $290 billion.
Last week, Putin approved a military reform plan that would cut the 3 million uniformed and civilian personnel in the overall military establishment by about 600,000, or about 20 percent.
Most experts believe that Russia wants deep nuclear cuts because it can't afford to keep up its forces even at START II levels and wants to preserve nuclear equality with the United States. Russia has only been able to build a handful of nuclear missiles in recent years, far too few to replace the hundreds of weapons approaching the end of their service lives.
''It's very important for Russia to persuade the United States to also cut its arsenals, to avoid a unilateral disarmament,'' said Dmitry Trenin, an analyst for the Carnegie Endowment.
Trenin said that Russia was likely to agree to some form of U.S. missile defense by agreeing to the changes in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic missile treaty which restricts such systems. That's because Russia fears it doesn't have the money to respond if the United States unilaterally backs out of the ABM treaty.
''Russia will have to choose between some kind of agreement with the United States and the absence of one, which would put Russia in a most desperate political and economic situation,'' Trenin said.
U.S. negotiators have pressed for ABM changes to allow a limited missile defense against attacks from so-called ''rogue states'' such as North Korea. Washington says its defense system would not be able to blunt a Russian attack.
Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev, the chief of Russian Strategic Missile Forces, acknowledged Monday that Russia faced an uphill battle to preserve the ABM treaty. He hinted at a compromise, saying that the two countries could consider counting both defensive, as well as offensive weapons as part of their strategic arsenals.
''In that case, a country willing to increase one part, will have to cut another,'' he said, according to the Interfax news agency.
Putin, however, spoke strongly against any changes in the ABM.
''They tell us that the situation in the world has considerably changed during the last three decades. ... The situation has indeed changed, but not to a degree allowing us to break the existing system of strategic stability by emasculating the ABM,'' Putin said.
He said recent attempts by the United States to negotiate with North Korea on limiting its missile program showed threats could be addressed by ''political and diplomatic means, without leaving the ABM treaty.''
