Russia formally withdraws from key post-Cold War European armed forces treaty

FILE PHOTO: Deputy head of Russia's Security Council and chairman of the United Russia party Dmitry Medvedev visits the Raduga State Machine Building Construction Bureau named after A. Bereznyak in Dubna, Moscow region, Russia February 2, 2023. Sputnik/Yekaterina Shtukina/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia on Tuesday formally withdrew from a landmark security treaty which limited key categories of conventional armed forces, blaming the United States for undermining post-Cold War security with the enlargement of the NATO military alliance.

The 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), signed a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, placed verifiable limits on categories of conventional military equipment that NATO and the then-Warsaw Pact could deploy.