Tuesday at midnight saw Russia formally withdraw from the Convention on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), according to a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry.
“The CFE withdrawal process for Russia, which our nation suspended in 2007, is now complete as of 0:00 hours on November 7, 2023. Thus, the international legal document has at last become part of our history,” the Ministry was quoted by the Xinhua news agency as saying.
It further stated that Russia does not currently see the possibility of signing arms control agreements with NATO members.
The incapacity of NATO member states’ authorities and the bloc’s patrons to engage in negotiations was blatantly evident. Any arms control agreements with them are currently unfeasible.”
The Budapest Memorandum of November 3, 1990, which set the maximum levels of conventional weapons and equipment for the six Warsaw Pact countries, and the Flank Agreement of May 31, 1996, which amended the original treaty, were two other CFE-related agreements that had ceased to be enforceable against Russia.
The CFE entered into force in 1992 after being first signed in 1990 by the six Warsaw Treaty states as well as the members of NATO.
The agreement placed restrictions on the amount of armaments and military hardware that each party could acquire in an effort to create equilibrium between the two military alliances.
Russia announced in 2007 that the agreement would not be implemented in 2007.
The nation completed the process of suspending its membership in the CFE Treaty on March 11, 2015, when it ceased to participate in meetings of the Joint Consultative Group on the Treaty. However, legally speaking, the nation remained a party.
Belarus has since represented Russia’s interests in the Joint Consultative Group.
A law denouncing the CFE was signed by President Vladimir Putin on May 29 and went into effect on June 9.
