Putin appoints an official to supervise Russia’s exit from the suspended 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe
Russia has indicated its intention to formally withdraw from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), a military transparency agreement that is currently suspended. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has been picked by President Vladimir Putin to supervise the procedure in the Russian parliament.
The appointment was revealed on Wednesday as part of regular published announcements by the Kremlin. Ryabkov will represent the government in both chambers of parliament regarding the proposed withdrawal, the document said.
CFE was one of the cornerstones of the attempted deflation of tensions between the Warsaw Pact bloc and NATO in the final days of the USSR. Signed in 1990, the agreement set limits for deployment of conventional forces on the European continent and established various transparency mechanisms, such as on-site verification inspections.
Moscow has long complained that the expansion of the US-led military alliance, which included the accession of former parts of the Warsaw Pact organization, was undermining the treaty.
In 2007, Russia announced a partial suspension of CFE, citing the failure of new NATO members to subject their military forces to the limits under the treaty. It fully withdrew from CFE mechanisms in 2015, saying it saw no purpose in continued participation.
In February, Moscow suspended participation in New START, the last bilateral nuclear arms reduction agreement with the US. The Russian government accused Washington of using the Ukrainian military as a proxy force to attack airfields that host Russian long-range nuclear-capable bombers, and of blocking Russian inspections of US nuclear facilities.
The US previously withdrew from several other treaties with Russia that were aimed at ensuring strategic stability. In 2002, President George W Bush pulled his country out of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, claiming the US needed a national defense system to defend itself from “rogue states.”
The administration of Donald Trump put an end to the Treaty on Open Skies, which allowed participants to conduct air surveillance of foreign militaries. It also quit the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which banned certain land-based missiles, considered to pose a risk of unintentional nuclear conflict.
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May 10, 2023 at 12:38AM
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Russia intends to withdraw from arms treaty
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