MINSK, May 29. /TASS/. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has signed a law suspending the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), according to a document posted on the government’s legal information website.

"The Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe of November 19, 1990, is hereby suspended," reads the law, which was passed by the Belarusian upper house in early May.

In early April, the Belarusian presidential press service said that the head of state had given the okay to submit a bill to the House of Representatives on the suspension of the country's participation in the CFE Treaty, which Minsk signed in 1992. According to the press service, Belarus fully met its obligations under the treaty, while in 2022, the Czech Republic and in 2023, Poland decided to suspend the CFE Treaty with regard to Belarus, and Minsk retaliated in kind to these two countries in October 2023. Moreover, in November 2023, NATO countries decided to indefinitely suspend their participation in the treaty, which, according to Belarus, essentially means the treaty itself is suspended.

The Belarusian presidential press service said that the bill "provides for the suspension of the CFE Treaty, which does not mean Belarus is withdrawing from it or the cessation of military implementation of internal procedures due to it." The Belarusian Defense Ministry said that Minsk did not plan to increase the number of military equipment and weapons in connection with the CFE Treaty in the near future.

The CFE Treaty provides for limitations on overall levels of conventional armaments and equipment, as well as mechanisms for verifying compliance with commitments, including information exchanges and inspections. The treaty was signed in 1990 and amended in 1997. NATO countries did not ratify the adapted version of the document and continued to adhere to the 1990 provisions, which contained conventional arms norms from the balance between the alliance and the now defunct Warsaw Pact organization. This is why Russia had to declare a moratorium on the implementation of the agreement’s terms in 2007 and suspended its membership in the treaty in March 2015. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the law denouncing the CFE Treaty on May 29, 2023; it entered into force on June 9. Moscow has repeatedly stated that the blame for the treaty’s termination will fall on the United States and its allies, who have chosen the path of confrontation.