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West conceals details of military drills from Russian inspectors — foreign ministry

According to the ministry, some states (Poland, Slovakia, Romania, the United Kingdom, Belgium) barred Russian inspectors from counting basic weapons systems and military hardware

Russian Foreign Ministry building Mikhail Dzhaparidze/TASS

Russian Foreign Ministry building

© Mikhail Dzhaparidze/TASS

MOSCOW, April 24. /TASS/. Western countries are concealing information about their military drills from Russian inspectors in violations of their liabilities under the 2011 Vienna Document on measures to build up measures of confidence and security (VDOC11), the Russian foreign ministry said on Tuesday after the publication of the US Department of State’s 2017 Compliance Report.

"Regrettably, as before, the United States’ report is ‘humbly’ silent about numerous problems with the implementation of the Vienna Document the United States and their allies have," the ministry said.

"For instance, a number of signatory nations (Denmark, Spain) keep on dodging notifying of other VDOC11 signatories about large-scale military exercises in a period of 42 days before their beginning. Apart from that, notifications from certain states lack information that is needed for comprehensive planning of inspection activities in a period of such drills," the ministry noted.

According to the ministry, some states (Poland, Slovakia, Romania, the United Kingdom, Belgium) barred Russian inspectors from counting basic weapons systems and military hardware.

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