Moscow cancels landmark military agreement with Berlin
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin instructed the Foreign Ministry to inform Berlin that the 1996 pact – which has guided defense collaboration for nearly three decades – is no longer valid, according to a resolution signed on Friday.
In July, the ministry said the agreement lost its relevance due to what it described as Germany's 'openly hostile' policy and increasingly aggressive military ambitions. It accused Berlin of indoctrinating its population to view Russia as the primary adversary.
The Kremlin signaled growing unease with German rhetoric earlier this week. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that Berlin is 'becoming dangerous again' after Defense Minister Boris Pistorius stated that German troops are ready to kill Russian soldiers 'if deterrence doesn't work and Russia attacks.'
Moscow has dismissed speculation that Russia plans to attack NATO as 'nonsense.' President Vladimir Putin said Western states are deceiving their populations to bloat their military budgets and cover up their economic failures.
Berlin has announced plans to increase its overall military budget to €153 billion by 2029, up from €86 billion this year. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has called for a nationwide debate on reinstating universal military conscription, and Chancellor Friedrich Merz told the German parliament on Wednesday that the 'means of diplomacy are exhausted.'
Berlin has been the second-largest arms supplier to Kiev since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, surpassed only by the US. Kiev used Berlin-supplied Leopard tanks in its incursion last year into Russia's Kursk Region – the site of the largest tank battle of WWII. In late May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Berlin's 'direct involvement in the war is now obvious,' warning that 'Germany is sliding down the same slippery slope it already followed a couple of times in the last century.'
Russia has denounced the Western weapons deliveries, saying they will not change the overall course of the conflict, and merely serve to prolong the bloodshed and risk further escalation.
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