[1/2]Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia and leader of the United Russia party Dmitry Medvedev visits the Raduga State Mechanical Engineering Bureau named after A. Bereznyak in Dubna, Moscow Region, Russia, February 2, 2023. Sputnik/Yekaterina Shtukina/Pool via Portal/File Purchase photo license rights
- Russia withdraws from the CFE Treaty
- Accuses the United States of undermining security
- Russia says NATO expansion has made the treaty history
- NATO has condemned Russia’s withdrawal from the treaty
MOSCOW, Nov 7 (Portal) – Russia formally withdrew from a landmark security treaty on Tuesday that restricted key categories of conventional forces, accusing the United States of undermining post-Cold War security by expanding the NATO military alliance.
The 1990 Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE), signed a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, established verifiable limits on categories of conventional military equipment that NATO and the then Warsaw Pact could use.
The treaty was intended to prevent both sides of the Cold War from pooling troops for a rapid offensive against the other in Europe. However, it was unpopular in Moscow because it reduced the Soviet Union’s advantage in conventional weapons.
Russia suspended participation in the treaty in 2007 and ceased active participation in 2015. More than a year after the all-out invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree in May ending the pact.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Russia officially withdrew from the pact at midnight – and the treaty is now “history”.
“The CFE Treaty was concluded at the end of the Cold War, when the formation of a new cooperation-based architecture of global and European security seemed possible and attempts were being made to do so,” the ministry said.
Russia said U.S. efforts to expand NATO had resulted in alliance countries “openly circumventing” the treaty’s group restrictions, adding that Finland’s admission to NATO and Sweden’s application meant that the contract is dead.
“Even the formal retention of the CFE Treaty has become unacceptable from the perspective of Russia’s fundamental security interests,” the ministry said, noting that the United States and its allies have not ratified the updated 1999 CFE Treaty.
The war in Ukraine has triggered the worst crisis in Moscow’s relations with the West since the depths of the Cold War. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at the weekend that relations with the USA were below zero.
After Russia announced its intention to leave the treaty this year, NATO condemned the decision, saying it undermined Euro-Atlantic security.
“Russia has failed to fulfill its CFE commitments for many years,” NATO said in June. “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and Belarus’ complicity contradict the goals of the CFE Treaty.”
The United States and its allies had made ratification of the amended 1999 CFE conditional on Russia fulfilling its commitments to Georgia and Moldova. Russia said the link was false.
According to the State Department, in 2011 the United States and NATO suspended implementation with respect to Russia in response to the Russian “suspension,” which Washington said was not legal under the treaty.
“Russia’s ‘suspension’ of treaty implementation since 2007 has significantly impaired the treaty’s verifiability, reduced transparency and undermined the cooperative security approach that has been core elements of the NATO-Russia relationship and European security for more than two decades,” Das said Ministry said in 2020.
Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; Edited by Gerry Doyle
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