Russia formally ceased its participation in the Treaty on Open Skies on Saturday, doing so after the failure by Washington’s European allies to give Moscow iron-clad guarantees that information collected during observation flights over Russian territory would not be handed over to the US.
In a statement released on the occasion, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that without US and Russian participation, the effectiveness of the treaty would decline dramatically.
“We respect the decision of the participating States remaining in the Treaty to continue its implementation. We wish them constructive and fruitful collaboration. However, it is obvious that without the participation of the United States and our country, the effectiveness of the Treaty on Open Skies will decrease sharply: the area of application will drop by about 80 percent, and the number of Open Skies missions planned for 2022 will severely decrease,” the ministry said.
“Full responsibility for the degradation of the agreement lies at the feet of the initiator of the collapse of the Treaty on Open Skies: the United States of America,” the ministry said. Moscow’s efforts to preserve the agreement proved for naught, falling victim “to the internal struggle of various influence groups in the United States, in which the hawks took over” and took a course toward the destruction of major security agreements with Russia, the ministry added.
The ministry stressed that Russia’s decision to withdraw from the treaty “was not taken without difficulty,” but ultimately made after weighing calculations of the implications for international security.
During its participation in the treaty, Russia conducted 646 flights, and allowed for 449 flights to be carried out over its territory among the 1,580 total flights made. The country’s jets became the first to switch to digital surveillance equipment within the framework of the treaty.
“Decades of fruitful implementation of the Treaty on Open Skies showed that it served well as a tool for strengthening confidence and security, creating additional opportunities for an objective and unbiased assessment of the military potential and military activities of the participating States,” the ministry stressed.
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