Putin issues decree for Russia's withdrawal from European arms treaty

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
10 May 2023 15:59
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Russian President Vladimir Putin appoints Sergey Ryabkov to supervise Russia's withdrawal from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov attends the talks between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, March 15, 2022. (AP)

Russian President Vladimir Putin officially appointed Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov to supervise in the Russian parliament the procedure of Moscow formally withdrawing from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE).

The withdrawal announcement from the CFE, a currently suspended military transparency agreement, came as part of the regular Kremlin announcements on Wednesday.

As per the appointment, Ryabkov has been set to represent the government in the two chambers of parliament, according to the document.

Russia's withdrawal from the treaty, according to Leonid Slutsky, the leader of the nationalist LDPR party, is anticipated to happen as early as this week.

During the final days of the USSR, the CFE accord served as one of the key components of an effort to defuse tensions between NATO and the Warsaw Pact bloc. The agreement, signed in 1990, imposed restrictions on the deployment of conventional troops on the European continent and included the establishment of a number of transparency tools, such as on-site verification inspections.

Moscow has long argued that the Warsaw Pact Treaty was being undermined by the US-led military bloc's eastward expansion, which included the addition of former Warsaw Pact nations.

Russia declared a partial suspension of the CFE in 2007, citing new NATO members' failure to subject their armed forces to the treaty's stipulated restrictions. In 2015, Moscow completely withdrew from CFE processes, arguing that its continued participation served no purpose.

It is worth highlighting that previously, the US had withdrawn from a number of accords with Russia whose goal was to guarantee strategic stability. George W. Bush signed the US withdrawal from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 under the pretext that the US needed a national defense system to protect itself from what it claimed were "rogue states."

Similarly, the Treaty on Open Skies, which permitted signatories to undertake aerial surveillance of foreign militaries, was terminated by the Trump administration.

Moreover, the US has also abandoned the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which prohibited some land-based missiles deemed to pose a risk of inadvertent nuclear war.

Putin announced Russia suspends New START nuke pact participation in February

In his state-of-the-nation address, back in February of this year, Putin revealed that Russia is suspending its participation in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START).

"I have to announce today that Russia is suspending its participation in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Let me say it again — [Russia] does not withdraw from the treaty, namely suspends its participation. But before returning to its discussion, we need to understand what countries such as France and the United Kingdom consider to be as their strategic arsenals, and how we will take them into account, that is, the combined strike potential of the [North Atlantic] Alliance," Putin tersely stated.

The US has issued an intolerable ultimatum to Russia on the New START treaty: Moscow must comply with the document's requirements, while Washington will do whatever it wants, as per the Russian President.

"Now, through representatives of NATO, in fact, they are putting forward an ultimatum — 'Russia should fulfill everything you agreed to, including the START treaty, and we will behave as we please,' as if there is no connection between the problems of START and, say, the conflict in Ukraine, other hostile actions against our country. As if there are no loud statements that they want to inflict a strategic defeat to us," Putin said.

Elsewhere in his remarks, he described NATO's demand that Russia returns to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which includes providing access to nuclear sites for inspections, as "absurd".

"At the beginning of February, NATO made a statement with actual demands to Russia, as they put it, 'to return to the implementation of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty,' including the admission of inspections to our nuclear, and defense facilities. Well, I don't even know what to call it — it's some kind of theater of the absurd. We know that the West is directly involved in the attempts of the Kiev regime to strike at the bases of our strategic aviation," Putin said.

Drones used for this purpose were "equipped and modernized with the assistance of NATO specialists," the President added.

"And now they also want to inspect our defense facilities. In modern conditions, today's confrontation, it sounds like some kind of nonsense," Putin said.

He further underlined that Russian-US relations have deteriorated, adding that this is Washington's "making".