Russian President Vladimir Putin has submitted to the State Duma a bill on the denunciation of the Open Skies Treaty. On Sputnik radio, military expert Igor Korotchenko stressed that the US decision violated the balance of interests and made Russia's participation in it meaningless.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has submitted to the State Duma a bill on the denunciation of the Open Skies Treaty (DON), according to the database of the lower house of parliament.
In April, the head of the Russian delegation to the Vienna talks on military security and arms control, Konstantin Gavrilov, said that Russia would complete all the procedures leading up to a full withdrawal from the DON by the end of May.
On Sputnik radio, Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of the National Defense magazine, stressed that the US decision to withdraw from the treaty made Russia's participation in it meaningless.
The Open Skies Treaty was signed in 1992 and has been in force since 2002. It became one of the confidence-building measures in the military sphere after the end of the cold war. The participating States were granted the right to fly over each other's territories using equipment that meets certain requirements. A total of 34 states joined the treaty, but the United States withdrew from it on November 22, 2020. In mid-January 2021, Russia announced the start of a similar procedure.
