The CFE was signed a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, placing verifiable limits on the types of conventional military equipment that NATO and the then Warsaw Pact could deploy.
The treaty was designed to prevent either side in the Cold War from massing forces for a rapid attack against the other in Europe.
Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev visits the Raduga State Machine-Building Bureau in Dubna, Russia in February 2023. Photo: Sputnik
Russia suspended its participation in the treaty in 2007 and stopped active participation in 2015. More than a year after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree in May rejecting the treaty.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Russia had formally withdrawn from the treaty and that the treaty was now “history”. The statement said: “The CFE Treaty was signed at the end of the Cold War, when the formation of a new architecture of global and European security based on cooperation seemed possible and appropriate efforts were being made.”
Russia said the US push for NATO expansion had led alliance countries to "openly break" the group's treaty restrictions, adding that Finland's accession to NATO and Sweden's entry meant the treaty was dead.
The war in Ukraine has caused the worst crisis in Moscow's relations with the West since the Cold War. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said over the weekend that relations with the US were at "below zero".
After Russia announced its intention to withdraw from the treaty this year, NATO condemned the decision, saying it undermined Euro-Atlantic security.
Mai Anh (according to Reuters)
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