Russia has completed the process of withdrawing from the CFE Treaty

Russia has completed the process of withdrawing from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), which was suspended by Moscow in 2007. “Russia is finally saying goodbye to the CFE Treaty without regret and with full confidence that it is right. The experience gained during its creation and implementation – both positive and negative – will be taken into account,” the Foreign Ministry said in a press release.

The Foreign Ministry noted that taking into account the direct responsibility of NATO countries for inciting the conflict in Ukraine, as well as the admission of Finland to the bloc and the consideration of Sweden’s application, “even the formal preservation of the CFE Treaty has become unacceptable from the point of view of Russia’s fundamental security interests.” Despite Moscow’s readiness for dialogue on ways to restore the “viability” of arms control in Europe, Western countries led by the United States “did not take advantage of this opportunity and preferred to continue building their policy not on the principles of cooperation, but on an anti-Russian bloc basis.”

The CFE Treaty was signed in 1990 and came into force in 1992. The Treaty established a balance between NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact Organization (WTO) dissolved in 1991, and also regulated the locations of offensive weapons. The arms reduction process itself was divided into three phases and was supposed to be completed in November 1993.

In 1999, an agreement was signed on the adaptation of the CFE Treaty, taking into account both the dissolution of the Warsaw Warsaw Party and the expansion of NATO to the East at the expense of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. The amended document established restrictions not for military-political blocs, but for countries and territories. In 2007, Russia suspended participation in the CFE Treaty, since the majority of signatories did not ratify the adapted agreement, and the amount of military equipment of NATO member countries began to exceed the limits specified in the document.

In addition, two more documents related to the CFE Treaty have now lost force: the Budapest Agreement of 1990 on the distribution of arms ceilings between the countries of the former Warsaw Warsaw Forces and the “Flank Document” of 1996, changing these ceilings in the north and south of Europe. In response to Russia’s withdrawal from the CFE Treaty, NATO made a statement about the suspension of the participation of the alliance member countries in the treaty. The official statement also noted that member countries will use NATO as a platform for “in-depth discussion and consultation” on the issue of arms control.

In addition to the CFE Treaty, the Vienna Documents (1990), which provided for the exchange of information between OSCE countries, as well as the Open Skies Treaty (came into force in 2002), were system-forming in the field of conventional arms control. The first document was updated several times, most recently in 2011. In March 2023, Russia refused to provide the OSCE with information about its Armed Forces. In 2020, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Open Skies Treaty, and in 2021, Russia also withdrew from it.

Russia suspended its participation in the CFE Treaty a long time ago, leaving it is only a legal formalization of the current situation, says Andrei Kortunov, scientific director of the Russian International Affairs Council. He also recalls that Russia withdrew from a treaty that was not ratified by Western countries.

It will no longer be possible to return to the CFE Treaty – the material base of weapons in Europe has changed too much. According to the expert, there are now practically no mechanisms of trust on conventional weapons between Russia and the West. At the same time, at some stage, the development of new agreements is likely, since neither side is interested in generating new risks and an arms race. As for the so-called OSCE Vienna Document, the general geopolitical situation is not conducive to its functioning. It is also worth considering, Kortunov adds, that the main contacts with the West were through the Russia-NATO Council, and not through the OSCE.

The CFE Treaty was dead long before Russia officially withdrew from it, explains Alexander Ermakov, a researcher at IMEMO RAS. It was supposed to agree on its updated version at the beginning of the century, and the treaty was suspended in 2007. Moscow’s current withdrawal from the CFE Treaty is a step within the framework of demonstrating Russia’s dissatisfaction with the policies of the West through the denunciation of treaties with it. The indefinite suspension of NATO countries’ participation in the CFE Treaty is just an attempt to “somehow react to Russia’s actions,” the expert concludes.