Russia has pulled out of a forum for discussing conventional arms control in Europe, closing another channel of communication with the west on security issues.
The move underlines Moscow’s conviction that it no longer feels bound to a longstanding security architecture on the continent that it now considers broken.
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On this topicIN EuropeThe Russian delegation was withdrawing from the Joint Consultative Group on the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) as of Wednesday, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday night.
Signed in 1990 by the then 16 members of Nato and six members of the Warsaw Treaty, the CFE treaty had been seen as a pillar of a post-cold war security system. It set ceilings for the level of conventional arms systems signatories were allowed to deploy and established verification and confidence-building measures.
Igor Sutyagin, a specialist on the Russian military at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said Moscow’s withdrawal was important because the consultative group was used to discuss issues of concern to both sides.
“This [group] is a confidence-building measure. What Russia is doing now is undermining confidence, to keep the west nervous and keep it off balance,” he said.
“This is a message to the west that we are not going to discuss our concerns with you, and you will not have a chance to ask us questions. We are going to be really hostile,” he added.
Moscow has been complaining since the 1990s that it felt encircled by Nato and that its security was being compromised by the alliance’s enlargement — a complaint the Kremlin has used to justify its actions in the Ukraine crisis over the past year.
What Russia is doing now is undermining confidence, to keep the west nervous and keep it offbalance- Igor Sutyagin, Royal United Services Institute
The CFE treaty has long been undermined by this controversy. After the start of Nato enlargement in the late 1990s, Russia began to accuse Nato of violations, while Nato complained that Moscow was in breach. In 1999, signatories agreed an adapted version, but this was never ratified because Nato members insisted Russia had to withdraw all its troops from former Soviet territories such as Transnistria, the breakaway region of Moldova.
In 2007, Moscow announced it was suspending its participation in the treaty. Since then, the Joint Consultative Group was the only forum that Russia continued to attend.
The Russian government said on Tuesday it had continued to participate in that group because it had hoped the meetings would be used for the development of a new regime of conventional arms control. “However, these hopes did not come true,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that meetings had been reduced to readings of the agenda and accusations against Russia from other members. “The suspension of its activities under the CFE, announced by Russia in 2007, is now complete,” it said.
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