Russia terminated the arms treaty with which the West deceived it
The State Duma of the Russian Federation today adopted a unanimous decision to denounce the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE Treaty). The bill was introduced by the President of Russia.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who presented the document, explained that Russia’s implementation of the agreement came into direct conflict with the interests of its national security.
“Finland is not bound by the provisions of the CFE Treaty. For ourselves, we wrote this agreement into the archives. They will not be able to intimidate us somehow. We will find practical, military-technical answers to military-technical measures, including the appearance of American troops on Finnish territory, and we will ensure our security,” Ryabkov said.
He noted that the procedure for withdrawing from the agreement will take six months. In particular, an international conference should be held on the grounds of its denunciation.
“At it, we will once again convey to the NATO countries and the entire world community that it was the collective West, with its destructive actions, that made it impossible for us to remain in the CFE Treaty,” Ryabkov said.
According to him, simultaneously with Russia’s withdrawal from the CFE Treaty, the so-called Budapest Agreement of 1990 on the maximum levels for the availability of conventional weapons and equipment of the six states parties to the Warsaw Pact will no longer be in force.
The head of the international committee of the State Duma, Leonid Slutsky, said that withdrawal from the CFE Treaty is a systemic rebuff to the forces of the collective West, which he called no longer strategic opponents, but enemies.
“Today, as we consign the CFE Treaty to history, we must realize: it is necessary to fight Russophobia and declare Ukraine a terrorist state. It is necessary to consolidate our efforts to win in the Northern Military District, and then in the new world realities that Russia will achieve, the safe new architecture of the 21st century, we will have new documents that support the strategic balance of power,” Slutsky said.
Deputies greeted his statement with applause.
The CFE Treaty was signed in Paris in 1990 by 16 NATO states and six Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) countries. It regulated the maximum number of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, artillery, attack helicopters and combat aircraft that participants could have (for Moscow, the restrictions applied to the territory of the European part up to the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea).
After the collapse of the USSR, the dissolution of the Department of Internal Affairs, the division of Czechoslovakia and the unification of Germany, 30 states became parties to the CFE Treaty.
The Soviet Union's quota was divided among the newly independent countries.
At the same time, by the end of the 90s, Russia had difficulties implementing a number of provisions of the document. In addition, when some of the former members of the Warsaw Division joined NATO, the limits on military equipment for blocs lost their meaning.
In 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree suspending the Russian Federation’s operation of the treaty. In May of this year, the head of state signed an order to withdraw from the treaty.
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