Russia officially withdrew from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) on Tuesday (November 7th), a landmark security treaty aimed at reducing conventional armed forces in the European region after the Cold War. Russia also accuses the United States of expanding the NATO military alliance and undermining post Cold War security. This has become the latest sign of increased tension between Russia and NATO.
The CFE was signed in 1990, aiming to prevent the Cold War camps on both sides, namely NATO and the then Warsaw Treaty Organization, from accumulating military power in Europe and quickly launching attacks on the other side. However, the treaty was not welcomed in Moscow as it weakened the Soviet Union's advantage in conventional weapons.
Russia temporarily withdrew from the treaty in 2007. More than a year after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree in May this year to abolish the treaty.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on its website stating that "the procedure for Russia to withdraw from CFE on November 7, 2023 has been completed." It also stated that "this international legal document, which was suspended by China as early as 2007, has finally become our history
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that "CFE was concluded at the end of the Cold War, and it seemed possible to establish a new global and European security architecture based on cooperation at that time. We also made appropriate attempts
Russia stated that the United States is actively promoting the expansion of NATO, which has led allies to "openly evade" the collective restrictions of the treaty, and added that Finland's accession to NATO and Sweden's application to join NATO mean that the treaty has passed away.
After Russia announced its intention to withdraw from the treaty this year, NATO condemned this decision and accused it of undermining security in the Euro-Atlantic region. In June of this year, NATO stated that "Russia has failed to fulfill its CFE obligations for many years. Russia's aggressive war against Ukraine and Belarus' accomplices have violated CFE's goals
In 2020, the US State Department stated: "Since 2007, Russia's suspension of compliance with this treaty has seriously weakened its verifiability, reduced transparency, and disrupted the security cooperation approach that has been the core element of NATO Russia relations and European security for over two decades
In February this year, Putin announced a suspension of the New START, which aims to limit the number of nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can possess. In September of this year, Putin signed the formal revocation of Moscow's ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). Moscow has stated that revoking its ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty does not mean that Russia will resume nuclear testing unless the United States does so first.
(This article is based on a report by Reuters.)