President Dmitry Medvedev has given Russia's final approval to the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with the United States. He's suggested the former Cold War foes will put the pact into force next week.

The New START was signed by Medvedev and President Barack Obama last April after a year of tough negotiations. It's the first Russian-U.S. nuclear arms pact in almost a decade. The treaty is a crucial element of a "reset" that has improved long-strained ties. It will commit the nations who have 95 percent of the world's nuclear weapons to ceilings of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads in seven years. That's up to 30 percent lower than in the 2002 Moscow treaty.