Russia suspended its participation in a key pact limiting military forces in Europe today, amid deteriorating relations with the West on a range of fronts.
The Kremlin said in a statement that President Vladimir Putin had signed a decree suspending Russia's role in the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, due to questions of "national security".
The pact was adopted in 1990 to limit the number of tanks, heavy artillery and combat aircraft deployed and stored between the Atlantic and Russia's Ural mountains.
Russia has accused the West of failing to ratify an amended version signed in 1999 to take into account the new post-Cold War situation.
Witold Waszczykowski
The treaty is consdiered the cornerstone of security and stability in Europe, both in terms of the reduction of tensions relating to accumulated weapons through arms control at the regional level, and of greater stability through confidence building, transparency and information exchange.
Talks last month with Nato states on updating its provisions ended without progress.
The pact requires signatories to notify other member states 150 days before suspending participation. The Russian Foreign Ministry said it would start the notification process today.
"The Russian moratorium on the CFE pact does not mean that we are fully shutting the door to dialogue," it said in a statement.
But if no solution was found in the five-month period, Russia would stop providing information and stop allowing inspections of its heavy weapons.
"If this is confirmed the Secretary General very much regrets this decision. The allies consider this treaty to be an important cornerstone of European security," a Nato spokesman said today.
The differences over the pact are part of broader tensions between Russia and the West. Relations are strained by disagreements over US plans for a missile shield in eastern Europe, proposed independence for Serbia's Kosovo province and Moscow's energy policies.
A source of friction over the CFE treaty is Nato's insistence on preserving "flanking arrangements" which ban large concentrations of forces and materiel near some borders.
Russia objects to the provision because it limits troop movements within its own territory, even though Moscow says its border areas have become more unstable since the Soviet Union broke up in 1991.
"Russian threats have materialised and I don't exclude that more steps could follow," said Yevgeny Volk, the head of the Washington-based Heritage Foundation think-tank.
"If there is no agreement with the United States on the missile shield ... Russia could potentially go ahead with its threats to retarget [at Europe] and redeploy missiles," he added.
Russia also wants cuts in Nato troop levels in outlying regions to reflect the accession to the alliance of eastern European states bordering Russia since 1990.
Nato states have said treaty changes depend on Russia withdrawing troops from the former Soviet republics of Moldova and Georgia, but Russia rejects any link between the two issues.
A spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the EU also regretted the Russian move. Britain too called the CFE a "cornerstone" of European security and Poland's deputy Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said the decision was "disconcerting".
"Perhaps this is a pretext, one that may be related to the plans to build the missile shield facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic," he said. "It could also be related to internal reasons, a way of showing Russia's strength ahead of the presidential campaign."
Mr Putin is due to step down in March 2008, when his second term expires. Anti-US and anti-Western rhetoric traditionally grows in Russia before elections.
In February Mr Putin stunned the West by accusing Washington of trying to dominate the world. Moscow has since threatened to create an Opec-style gas cartel and deploy missiles in its Western enclave Kaliningrad.
THE CONVENTIONAL FORCES TREATY: Main points
- Limits the number of battle tanks, heavy artillery, combat aircraft and attack helicopters deployed and stored between the Atlantic and Russia's Ural mountains
- Originally negotiated among the then-22 member states of Nato and the Warsaw Pact countries
- Came into force in 1992 and it has secured the reduction or destruction of about 60,000 pieces of equipment of types limited by the treaty since then.
- Complemented by "The Concluding Act of the Negotiation on Personnel Strength of Conventional Armed Forces in Europe" resulting in the reduction of armed forces on Russian borders by over 700,000 since 2001. There are now fewer than 3 million troops in the area of application, with an authorised ceiling of more than 5.7 million.
- Updated November 1999 in Istanbul with leaders of 30 nations setting limits on conventional forces on a national basis instead of the bloc-to-bloc totals set in the 1990 document.
- Revised treaty gave sovereign states the sole right to consent to foreign forces on their soil
- Updated treaty will come into force after ratification by all 30 signatory nations. Only Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine have ratified the revamped pact so far.
- Russia has been anxious for the treaty to be ratified so that the ex-Soviet Baltic states can sign up. Some Russian officials fear they could become Nato outposts for nuclear arms or army bases.