2000
March 14 - Russia and the Netherlands sign a cooperative agreement for the dismantling of old Russian nuclear warheads and nuclear submarines.
April -The Russian Federation ratifies the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II).
August 12 - The Russian submarine Kursk sinks in the Barent Sea. All 118 crew members are killed. Several bodies are recovered, the exact cause of the sinking is unknown.
December - The last of the reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant are shut down.
2001
President George W. Bush moves forward in developing a National Missile Defense system. Russia and China oppose its development
June 29 - Efforts to raise the Russian submarine Kursk begin.
August - Yucca Mountain in Nevada is initially approved to become a storage facility for high level nuclear waste.
September 11 - Terrorists hijack four commercial aircraft. The Pentagon is damaged by one plane, two planes strike the World Trade Center, destroying both towers, and the fourth plane crashes in rural Pennsylvania.
October - The Kursk is raised and brought to port.
December 13 - The United States announces that it will withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.
2002
May 24 - Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty is signed between the U.S. and Russia. Each nation would limited to 1,700 to 2,200 strategic nuclear warheads apiece.
