Senior U.S. and Russian officials began talks on Wednesday on strategic nuclear stability, with a fresh mandate from their presidents who held a summit in Geneva last month.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov headed their respective delegations at the meeting at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Geneva.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose countries hold 90% of the world's nuclear weapons, agreed to launch a bilateral dialogue on strategic stability to "lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures".