Members of the State Duma at the plenary meeting adopted a bill on denunciation of the Treaty on Open Skies. The corresponding bill was earlier submitted to the State Duma by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.
The Treaty allows the participating states to perform aerial observation over any of each other's territories in accordance with quotas agreed by observation missions. The Treaty regulates those flight operations, establishes requirements for observation aircrafts condition and technical limitations of observation equipment, and also establishes a monitoring mechanism on compliance with the Treaty.
The Treaty was signed in Helsinki on 24 March 1992 and was ratified by the Russian Federation on 26 May 2001. The United States of America was the first state unilaterally withdrawn from the Treaty in November 2020.
“The USA
withdrew, but which states are still members of the Treaty? The US satellites,
NATO member states. So now they say: “Russia should not withdraw from the Treaty!” Why? They want to continue to perform aerial observation missions. And then they would send this data to the USA. Which states are still members? It
is impossible to fly over the territories of those states because an aircraft
starts to slow down and flies to another country,” said the Chairman of the State Duma Viacheslav Volodin
Vyacheslav Victorovich
The Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of the eighth convocation. Elected in single mandate constituency № 163 (Saratov constituency - Saratov Oblast)
at the plenary meeting.
“This is the right time. They gave us time to think it over,” stressed Viacheslav Volodin. He added that Russia had always supported maintenance of global security, as that was Russia’s ideology.
“On the other hand, we should be reasonable. The US withdrew from the Treaty, and what do the US authorities think that they will be able to continue to monitor Russia? We should withdraw too and, moreover, continue our dialogue based only on equality and not on double standards, as we have it now,” he stressed.
“In fact, what the US authorities are doing in the field of maintaining global security can cause big problems. Therefore, we need to take this into account. And that is very good that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has promptly reported on the document submitted by the President,” said Viacheslav Volodin.
The Chairman of the State Duma called that a historic day and noted the role of the head of state, who attached great importance to the security of our country.
“We should support our President and understand that Russia has become that state that takes independent decisions. We should always support and appreciate that,” he concluded.
