US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Russia Thursday in a bid to accelerate progress towards a new accord between the Cold War foes to drastically reduce their nuclear arsenals. Clinton was to hold talks with her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov set to focus strongly on the increasingly protracted process of agreeing a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) which expired in December. Negotiators failed to agree a successor by the end-2009 target agreed by US President Barack Obama and Russia's Dmitry Medvedev and the issue risks becoming an embarrassment to the "reset" in ties if not settled soon.