Russia terminates military treaties with 11 European countries
20 December 09:15
The Russian Ministry of Defense has received the approval of the Russian government to terminate 10 military cooperation agreements and one relevant memorandum that Russia signed with a number of European countries between 1992 and 2002. The decree was published on Friday, December 19, on the official Russian legal information portal, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports citing DW.
The list of agreements that can be terminated by the Russian Defense Ministry includes agreements on “cooperation in the military sphere” with such countries as Germany, Poland, Romania, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Croatia, Belgium and the Czech Republic, as well as a memorandum signed by the Russian and British Defense Ministries.
The agreements being terminated were part of the legal framework that regulated bilateral military cooperation between the signatories, established after the collapse of the Soviet Union, media reports say.
Russia has previously suspended military-technical cooperation with Germany
In July 2025, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced the termination of the agreement on military-technical cooperation between Russia and Germany, concluded in 1996. The ministry explained this step by the fact that the agreement “has lost its meaning and practical significance” and “absolutely does not correspond to the current state of Russian-German interstate relations.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry blamed Germany for all this, devoting part of its official statement to insulting the German side. According to Russian diplomats, the German government is “deliberately ideologically indoctrinating the German population in an anti-Russian manner,” pursuing “increasingly aggressive militaristic aspirations,” and Berlin is allegedly “bursting with exorbitant foreign policy ambitions.”
Germany did not comment on these statements by Moscow.
From the New START Treaty to plutonium utilization: Russia continues to break international treaties
Since the beginning of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the resulting tensions with Western countries, Russia has withdrawn from dozens of international agreements that address security cooperation.
One of the most recent was the agreement between Russia and the United States on plutonium utilization, which, among other things, prohibited the use of this element for nuclear weapons. At the same time, Russia de facto suspended the document back in 2016, justifying it by the “sharp deterioration of relations” between Moscow and Washington. In response to the resumption of the agreement, the Kremlin demanded that sanctions imposed on Russia against Ukraine be lifted.
The Russian authorities are also trying to get the United States to commit not to build strategic offensive weapons, which were regulated by the START III treaty concluded in 2010. Otherwise, Moscow threatens to officially denounce the agreement.
Also in April 2025, the Russian Cabinet of Ministers denounced an agreement with Norway, Sweden, and Finland on cooperation in the Barents Sea and the Euro-Arctic region. Russia claims responsibility for ending its partnership with Western countries.
