Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev...
above 500, and had a good reason to do so.The problem is that the service life of Russian missiles is forcing the Defense Ministry to gradually remove submarines, strategic bombers and missiles from service. This means that by 2017 - the planned expiration date of the new START treaty - Russia will have a little over 500 carriers at best anyway. Russia could have even less than that, unless the defense industry urgently concentrates on building new missiles while neglecting all other projects. Since this is highly unlikely, Russia will probably "exceed" the limitation on carriers.
So Obama must indeed be given credit for meeting Russia halfway on this issue. Moreover, the United States also agreed to consider B-52 bombers strategic nuclear carriers, whether or not they carry nuclear warheads, and Topol-M mobile missile systems will now be allowed to be deployed anywhere in Russia, which was not the case in START-1.