By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 27, 2007; A16
MOSCOW, April 26 -- President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he was suspending Russia's obligations under the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, ratcheting up a tense standoff with the NATO alliance over U.S. plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe.
The CFE Treaty dates from the last days of the Cold War and limits the deployment of conventional arms, including tanks and other heavy weapons, on either side of the old Iron Curtain. Putin linked his decision, which he said could lead to full withdrawal from the treaty, to the U.S. missile plan.
NATO countries are "building up military bases on our borders and, more than that, they are also planning to station elements of anti-missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic," said Putin, delivering his annual state of the nation address to both houses of parliament, the cabinet and regional leaders. "In this connection, I consider it expedient to declare a moratorium on Russia's implementation of this treaty."
Western governments have contended for years that Russia has not fully complied with the treaty and amendments to it, pointing to force levels it keeps in the Chechnya region and the continuing presence of its troops in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Moldova. The missile defense plan has raised disputes over the treaty to a new level of intensity.
The Kremlin has expressed deep hostility to the American system despite repeated assurances by the Bush administration that the planned 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and radar station in the Czech Republic would pose no threat to Russia.
U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who visited Moscow this week, have said the system is small and directed against potential threats from Iran, and could be easily overwhelmed by Russia's strategic missile forces. They have said they are open to cooperation with Russia on missile defense.
In a wide-ranging speech that mostly centered on domestic issues, Putin also noted that the next state of the nation address would be given by a new president. He said, however, that "it is premature for me to declare a political will" on who should succeed him.
Russia plans to conduct national parliamentary elections in December, followed by presidential elections in March. Putin warned against any foreign interference in the political process.
"There is a growth in the flow of money from abroad for direct interference in our internal affairs," he said. "There are those who, skillfully using pseudo-democratic rhetoric, would like to return to the recent past -- some to loot the country's national riches, to rob the people and the state; others to strip us of economic and political independence."
He did not name any individuals or countries, but Russian officials have complained about democracy-building projects funded by Western governments. The remarks could also have alluded to Boris Berezovsky, the London-based Russian exile, who recently told a British newspaper that he was working with parts of the political elite in Russia to subvert Putin.
The announcement on the CFE Treaty move appeared to take NATO officials, who are gathering in Oslo for a meeting with their Russian counterparts, by surprise. They said they would be discussing Putin's remarks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
"I expect Foreign Minister Lavrov to explain the words of his president," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters in Oslo. "The NATO allies attach great importance to the CFE Treaty."
U.S. officials appear increasingly tired of what they depict as Russian obduracy and willful distortion of the missile system's aims. "The idea that somehow 10 interceptors and a few radars in Eastern Europe are going to threaten the Soviet strategic deterrent is purely ludicrous, and everybody knows it," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at a news conference in Oslo.
The Russians agree that they could easily overwhelm the system. Rather, their opposition stems from what they see as a series of broken promises during the eastward expansion of NATO since the fall of communism a decade and a half ago.
Russian officials contend that in 1999, when Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary became alliance members, NATO gave a commitment that it would not establish bases on the territory of the old Warsaw Pact or expand into the former Soviet Union.
U.S. forces are today opening bases in Romania and Bulgaria, and three former Soviet republics -- Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia -- became NATO members in 2004, moves that Russian officials contend are violations of agreements. Western officials deny those claims.
In view of NATO's record, Russians say, the missile defense system, once established, could be quickly expanded and become a real strategic threat to Russia. "I propose discussing this problem in the NATO-Russia Council and, should there be no progress in the negotiations, to look at the possibility of ceasing our commitments under the CFE Treaty," Putin said.
Putin also said the CFE Treaty, which limits Russia's ability to deploy its forces within its own borders, was an anachronism. "It is hard to imagine that anyone would restrict the United States, for example, in moving its troops around its own territory," he said.
He also noted that the United States and other NATO countries continue to link ratification of an amended 1999 version of the treaty to the withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgia and Moldova. Russia's suspension of the treaty, he suggested, would continue until the other countries ratify the new text and begin to "strictly implement it."
"It is finally time for our partners to contribute to reducing arms in actions and not words," Putin said.
Russian grievances resonate with some of NATO's European members who have questioned the need for missile defense. "I am still in listening mode, and I am still to be convinced about the threat," Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said Thursday.