Russia terminates military agreements with 11 European countries 0 14

The Ministry of Defense of Russia has received approval from the government of the Russian Federation to terminate 10 agreements on military cooperation and one corresponding memorandum that Russia concluded with several European countries between 1992 and 2002. The order was published on Friday, December 19, on the official Russian legal information portal.

The list of agreements that the Russian Ministry of Defense may terminate includes agreements on "cooperation in the military field" with countries such as Germany, Poland, Romania, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Croatia, Belgium, and the Czech Republic, as well as a memorandum concluded by the defense ministries of Russia, the United Kingdom, and Northern Ireland.

The terminated agreements were part of the legal framework that regulated bilateral military interaction between the signatories established after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the media notes.

Russia previously ceased military-technical cooperation with Germany

In July 2025, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced the termination of the military-technical cooperation agreement between Russia and Germany, concluded in 1996. The agency explained this step by Moscow by stating that the agreement "has lost its meaning and practical significance" and "absolutely does not correspond to the current state of Russian-German intergovernmental relations."

In all this, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Germany, dedicating part of its official statement to insults against the German side. According to Russian diplomats, the German government "deliberately ideologically processes the population of Germany in an anti-Russian manner," follows "increasingly aggressive militaristic aspirations," and Berlin is allegedly "bursting with excessive foreign policy ambitions."

These statements from Moscow were not commented on in Germany.

From START to plutonium disposal: Russia continues to withdraw from international treaties

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the resulting tension in relations with Western countries, Russia has withdrawn from dozens of international agreements concerning security cooperation.

One of the latest was the agreement between Russia and the United States on plutonium disposal, which, among other things, prohibited the use of this element for the creation of nuclear weapons. However, de facto Russia suspended the action of the document back in 2016, justifying this by the "sharp deterioration of relations" between Moscow and Washington. In response to the resumption of the agreement, the Kremlin demanded the lifting of sanctions imposed on Russia amid the country's aggression against Ukraine.

Russian authorities are also trying to obtain commitments from the United States not to create strategic offensive weapons, which were regulated by the START-3 treaty concluded in 2010. Otherwise, Moscow threatens to officially denounce the agreement.

Additionally, in April 2025, the Russian government denounced the agreement with Norway, Sweden, and Finland on cooperation in the Barents Sea and the Euro-Arctic region. Russia places the responsibility for the cessation of partnership on Western countries.