MOSCOW \u2014 The lower house of Russia\u2019s parliament on Tuesday voted unanimously to formally pull out of a key Cold War-era security deal, more than eight years after Moscow halted its participation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The vote in the State Duma came less than a week after President Vladimir Putin introduced a draft bill on May 10 \u201cdenouncing\u201d the Treaty of Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, which aimed to prevent Cold War rivals from massing forces at or near mutual borders. The deal was signed in November 1990, but not fully ratified until two years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Federation Council, Russia\u2019s Kremlin-controlled upper chamber that generally rubber-stamps legislation that the Duma has approved, is scheduled to consider Russia\u2019s pullout from the treaty next Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moscow first announced its intention to completely withdraw from the agreement in early 2015. Since last February, Moscow\u2019s military operation in Ukraine has seen hundreds of thousands of Russian troops pour into the country, which shares a border with NATO members Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Tuesday, Putin\u2019s designated envoy told the State Duma that NATO countries had \u201cmade it impossible\u201d for Russia to remain in the treaty by allowing for the alliance\u2019s expansion into Central and Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov also described the treaty as \u201ccontrary to Russia\u2019s security interests\u201d in an interview published Monday in Parliamentskaya Gazeta, a weekly published by the State Duma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ryabkov\u2019s remarks were echoed by key deputies during the parliamentary session Tuesday. State Duma speaker Leonid Slutsky charged that the treaty had \u201clong existed only on paper,\u201d while Andrey Kartapolov, the chairman of Russia\u2019s parliamentary committee, said that it had been rendered obsolete by NATO\u2019s placing of military infrastructure in Central and Eastern European member states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ryabkov told lawmakers that completing the withdrawal process would take about six months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The deal, now formally scrapped by Russia\u2019s parliament, aimed to prevent Cold War rivals from massing forces at or near mutual borders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":106842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":65,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,8,23,89,12,26,65],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1355],"class_list":["post-73634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-home","category-middle-column","category-news","category-newsletters","category-your-navy"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"VHIXEJG2ERAP3ESEYMXQ3RU5HM","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-military\/2023\/05\/16\/russias-parliament-votes-to-scrap-cold-war-armed-forces-deal\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n