The State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, has adopted a bill paving the way for Moscow’s withdrawal from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE).
Signed in 1990, the CFE treaty sought to limit deployment of conventional military forces in Europe by both the Western NATO alliance and the Soviet-Era Warsaw Pact.
“We have already written it [the treaty] off. It is a relic of the past,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said at a plenary Duma session on May 16.
“What other [signatory] states will do is up to them to decide,” he added.
The bill was introduced last week by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who appointed Ryabkov to represent him at parliamentary discussions of the issue….