Russia declares NATO incapable of negotiating in the field of arms control

"The authorities of NATO member states and its partners have clearly demonstrated their inability to negotiate. At this stage, there can be no agreement with them in the field of arms control. Only when they return to constructive and realistic positions can the corresponding dialogue be revived as part of efforts to form a new European security system that meets Russia's interests."

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, on November 7 (local time), Russia officially withdrew from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) - an agreement designed to de-escalate potential conflicts between Russia and the West. For Moscow, the final document has "gone down in history". Despite the fact that after the end of the Warsaw Pact, the CFE Treaty provided Russia with "material security guarantees", some of its provisions no longer meet Russia's interests. Therefore, CFE has practically "lost touch".

However, the Russian Foreign Ministry noted that the West has quite highly assessed the ability to "influence" Russia and the level of Russia's interest in the CFE.

Following Russia, the UK Foreign Office announced the suspension of participation in the CFE, as "a response to the actions" of Moscow.

According to the Wall Street Journal citing sources from the US State Department, the country will suspend its participation in CFE from December 7.

Although NATO asserts that the CFE is "the architecture of European security", NATO has now announced plans to indefinitely suspend its participation in the CFE Treaty, emphasizing that it condemns Russia's decision to withdraw from the treaty.

Military analysts say NATO has repeatedly violated agreements by conducting military exercises near the border with Russia, on a scale exceeding the level of military activity allowed by the CFE Treaty.

Military expert Yuri Knutov stressed that the situation worsened after NATO countries chose to ignore Russia's demands, which involved the desire to restore the status quo that existed before the bloc's eastward expansion. However, the alliance has no intention of rejecting Ukraine and other countries located next to Russia from joining the bloc. All this was the "last straw" that led Russia to start a special military operation in Ukraine.

"NATO acts quite sophisticatedly: within the framework of a large-scale exercise, a number of official exercises are held under different names, for example, the Defender 2023 exercise. Not to mention Finland's accession to the bloc, plans to deploy a rapid reaction force on the eastern flank, near the border with Russia, with a number of about 300,000 troops, as well as the militarization of Ukraine. In such a situation, maintaining the CFE Treaty is absurd," - military expert Knutov analyzed.

Vladimir Bruter, an expert at the Institute for International Political and Humanitarian Studies, said that the US and its allies "have discredited themselves". It would be difficult to have agreements between Russia and Western countries led by the US if Moscow did not trust these "partners".

"The plan that the US side often proposes to monitor the implementation of agreements in the military sphere is dishonest. The US wants to be allowed to inspect, but they themselves create many obstacles for Russian inspections. In all of this, double standards are visible in the US and its allies. And they are not capable of negotiating" - expert Bruter assessed./.