Russia on Tuesday formally withdrew from the historic FACE security treaty that limited certain key categories of conventional forces in Europe, accusing the United States of undermining post-Cold War security by expanding NATO, Reuters reported, according to News.ro.

Russia’s foreign ministry said Russia had officially withdrawn from the agreement at midnight, making the treaty “history”.

The Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (FACE) of 1990, signed a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, imposed proven limits on the categories of conventional military equipment that NATO and the then Warsaw Pact could deploy. The treaty was designed to prevent either side of the Cold War from building up forces for a rapid offensive against the other side in Europe, but it was unpopular in Moscow because it reduced the Soviet Union’s superiority in conventional arms.

Russia suspended its participation in the treaty in 2007 and ceased active participation in 2015. More than a year after the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree denouncing the treaty in May.

“The CSCE was concluded at the end of the Cold War, when it seemed possible to form a new architecture of global and European security based on cooperation and corresponding attempts were made,” commented the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.

“The formal preservation of the Treaty has become unacceptable from the point of view of Russia’s fundamental security interests”

Russia said the US push for NATO expansion had led to the alliance’s countries “openly circumventing” the treaty’s group restrictions, adding that Finland’s entry into NATO and Sweden’s request meant the treaty had de facto lapsed.

“Even the formal preservation of the FACE Treaty has become unacceptable from the point of view of Russia’s fundamental security interests,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said, recalling that the US and its allies did not ratify the updated CSTO in 1999.

NATO condemned this decision

The US and its allies tied the ratification of the adapted version of the 1999 FACE to Russia’s fulfillment of commitments to withdraw troops from Georgia and Moldova. However, Russia has said that this link is false.

After Russia announced its intention to withdraw from the treaty this year, NATO condemned the decision, saying it undermined Euro-Atlantic security. “Russia has not complied with its FACE commitments for many years,” NATO said in June.

“Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine and the complicity of Belarus contradict the goals of the CSTO,” the alliance said.

The war in Ukraine provoked the worst crisis in Moscow’s relations with the West since the Cold War. Kremlin spokesman Dmytro Peskov said last weekend that relations with the United States are “below zero.”

In 2011, in response to the “suspension” of Russia’s participation in the treaty, which Washington called illegal, the United States and NATO stopped its implementation with Russia, according to the State Department. “Russia’s suspension of the treaty since 2007 has seriously weakened the ability to verify the treaty’s implementation, reduced transparency, and undermined the cooperative approach to security that has been a cornerstone of NATO-Russia relations and the security of European nations for more than two decades,” the State Department said in a statement. in 2020.

Russia withdrew from international arms control treaties signed with the West

The decision on Russia’s withdrawal from the Treaty was announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin in May.

The 1990 FACE treaty imposed restrictions on the placement of military equipment in Europe. Russia suspended participation in this treaty back in 2007, and in 2015 “completely terminated”.

In May, Putin also signed a decree symbolically denouncing the treaty after a debate and vote in Russia’s bicameral parliament on the issue.

Russia recently suspended a number of arms control agreements with Western nations, including the New Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (with the US), and began transferring tactical nuclear weapons to neighboring Belarus.

Relations between Moscow and the West are at their lowest level since the end of the Cold War after Putin sent tens of thousands of Russian troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, as part of what he called a “special military operation” to protect Russia’s security from pro-Western authorities in Kyiv. Ukraine and its Western allies say Russia’s actions are an unprovoked war of aggression to seize territory.