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News > Russia

Russia Withdraws From the Open Skies Treaty

  • Plane of a Russian company during the take-off process.

    Plane of a Russian company during the take-off process. | Photo: Twitter/ @RFERL

Published 7 June 2021
Opinion

This treaty allows some 30 countries to fly over any part of the territory of the other participating nations. In 2020, however, the U.S. broke with this commitment

Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Monday enacted the law to withdraw his country from the Open Skies Treaty. Previously the Lower House (Duma) passed that law on May 19 and the Senate ratified it last week.

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In 2020, the United States left this multilateral agreement, which was signed in 1992 and entered into force in 2002. In May, Washington notified Moscow that President Joe Biden's administration will not return to the agreement.

The Open Skies Treaty allows some 30 countries to fly over any part of the territory of the other participating nations. It also allows them to take aerial photographs to control the proliferation of weapons and military activities.

The United States broke with this multilateral commitment because Russia was allegedly restricting its flights over some regions, including Kaliningrad and areas near the republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Repeatedly, however, Moscow rejected those allegations and tried to salvage the Open Skies Treaty at several meetings in Vienna with the other partners to the multilateral agreement.

On Monday Russia also announced that it will not participate in the International Space Station (ISS) project if the U.S. sanctions against several Russian companies are not lifted soon.

"If the sanctions against Progress and TsNIIMass remain in place… our U.S. partners will be responsible for Russia's withdrawal from the ISS," said Dmitry Rogozin, president of the space agency Roscosmos, before the Lower House.

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