Russia needs neither CFE Treaty, nor "open skies"

At the International Conference on European Security held today in Moscow, the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, said the mechanism of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) is dead.

The Deputy Defense Minister, Anatoly Antonov, also said that Russia does not intend to return to the CFE Treaty, since it is outdated and requires regulation and control of arms between the Warsaw Pact (which no longer exists) and NATO. "The cold war is over, we need new mechanisms," Antonov said.

However, NATO still expects to reach a mutually-acceptable solution with Russia on the CFE reaty. This was announced today at a briefing in Moscow by the NATO Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs, Dirk Brengelmann.

"We hope that the Russian side is also convinced that we can reach mutual understanding on the issue. Though we can see that the Russian Department of Defense said that the mechanism was dead, that they have seen the patient is critical," he said.

According to Brengelmann, today's international conference on European security was devoted to stability and predictability. "For Russia, this is important when it comes to missile defense, it is important for all of us when it comes to nuclear weapons. I'd like to believe that the renewal of the CFE Treaty will be important for all sides as well," he said.

Another urgent issue, which arose at the Moscow conference, was the implementation of the Open Skies Treaty. According to the Deputy Defense Minister, Anatoly Antonov, the statistics of observation flights under the Open Skies Treaty says that the contract itself may be used for the intelligence exploration of the territory of Russia and Belarus.

He cited the following information on the Treaty on Open Skies. In accordance with the treaty the quota of observation flights over Russia and Belarus is 42 flights per year. A similar quota of flights is in place for the United States. In 2012, there were 37 observation flights over the territory of Russia, 2 flights over Germany and 3 flights over the UK. "Then, it turns out that the Treaty on Open Skies is used in order to carry out further exploration activities related to Russian and Belarusian armed forces," Antonov said.