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Putin has signed a law that would remove Russia from the Open Skies treaty

The Russian president is formalizing his exit from the Moscow treaty ahead of the expected Geneva summit with Joe Biden.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a law formalizing Russia’s withdrawal from the Open Skies Control Treaty, a treaty that allows unarmed surveillance flights over member countries.

Russia hoped Putin and his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden could discuss the treaty at a summit in Geneva later this month.

But the Biden administration informed Moscow in May that it would not re-enter the treaty when the Trump administration left last year.

The Kremlin said on Monday that the U.S. decision to withdraw from the treaty had broken a “significant balance of interest” between the treaty members and forced Russia to leave.

“This caused serious damage to the implementation of the treaty and its importance in gaining trust and transparency (it posed a threat to Russia’s national security,” the Kremlin said in a statement on its website.

Moscow hoped Biden would reverse the previous decision.

But the Biden administration did not change its turn, accusing Russia of violating the treaty denied by Moscow.

Russian officials said they regretted the decision by the U.S. not to participate again, saying it was a “political mistake,” and warned that the move would not create the right atmosphere for arms control discussions at the Geneva summit.

Alleged violations

In January, Russia announced its own intentions to abandon the treaty, and the government introduced legislation to formalize the exit in parliament last month.

At the time, a Kremlin spokesman said one reason was that the U.S. was still receiving information obtained through the treaty from NATO allies.

U.S. officials say Russia has broken the treaty, bordering on U.S. neighbor Georgia and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic coast.

Russia denies violations.

The treaty, signed in 1992 and entered into force in 2002, allows countries to conduct short-range and unarmed surveillance flights throughout the territory of other parties and gather information on each other’s military forces.

Its aim is to increase transparency and build trust between countries.

Members include countries in Europe, the former Soviet Union and Canada.




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