Russia denounced the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) as it was a lifeless mechanism. This was announced on Monday, May 29, by the press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov.

Earlier that day, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law denouncing the treaty.

“There should be no direct consequences, because it was an inanimate mechanism and, believe me, not through the fault of the Russian Federation. Russia simply brought the de facto situation into line,” Peskov told reporters.

He noted that today there is a vacuum in the field of arms control, which needs to be filled with new legal documents jointly with other countries.

“It requires ‘hard and drawn out work,'” the presidential spokesman said.

Earlier this month, Konstantin Gavrilov, head of the Russian delegation at the Vienna talks on military security and arms control, said the treaty had completely outlived itself and was not in the national interests of the Russian Federation.

The draft law on the denunciation of the CFE Treaty was submitted by Putin to the State Duma on May 10. A few days later, the lower house of parliament voted for its denunciation, and on May 24 the decision was unanimously adopted by the Federation Council. In addition, a number of treaty-related international agreements were automatically terminated. Silent about arsenals: what does Russia‘s withdrawal from the CFE Treaty mean? Of the basic agreements with the West, only the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons remained

The Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe was signed in Paris in 1990. An updated version of the CFE Treaty was ratified at the OSCE summit in Istanbul in 1999. It was signed only by Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. In 2007, Moscow suspended participation in the treaty until NATO member countries begin to implement it in good faith.Share: