30 Years of Partnership Ends: "Leopard Tanks" Drive Over the Tracks —— Russia Terminates the Military-Technical Cooperation Agreement with Germany, Effective Since 1996

Author: Svetlana Gomzykova

Figure: Exterior of the Russian Foreign Ministry Building

The Russian Foreign Ministry announced that Moscow will terminate the military-technical cooperation agreement with Germany, as the document has "lost its meaning and practical value" in the current situation.

The statement published on the Russian Foreign Ministry website stated that due to the German government's open hostile policy and increasingly aggressive militarization, this document, which is formally still in force, "does not correspond to the current state of Russian-German relations." The Ministry emphasized that Russia has decided to withdraw from the agreement and is "currently carrying out the corresponding domestic procedures."

Russia also noted that the German leadership "deliberately spreads anti-Russian ideological propaganda among the public" and deliberately escalates the military-political situation.

The Foreign Ministry stated: "The German government, driven by inflated diplomatic ambitions, acts recklessly, directly harming Russia's core interests in security." The statement also mentioned that the historical lessons of German military adventurism are well known.

This government-to-government military-technical cooperation agreement was signed on June 14, 1996 — when the Russian leader was Boris Yeltsin and the German chancellor was Helmut Kohl, and at the time, the agreement was considered a symbol of Russian-German partnership.

The agreement had an initial term of five years, but if either party did not notify the other of withdrawal, it would automatically renew every three years. The agreement also provided for the establishment of an intergovernmental committee for military-technical cooperation.

According to the agreement, both governments were not only obligated to promote cooperation between Russian and German companies, but also to keep confidential any materials developed through cooperation. In addition, Article 5 of the agreement stipulated that "without the prior written consent of the other party," no products produced within the framework of the cooperation could be sold or transferred to a third party.

But times have changed. Today, Germany is not only one of the main suppliers of military aid to the Ukrainian armed forces, but also openly revises the Nazi past and distorts history within Germany itself, once again calling for war against Russia — this time under the NATO framework.

No wonder the current German defense minister Boris Pistorius recently proposed declaring Russia as "the biggest threat to NATO" at the upcoming Hague summit.

More symbolically, German tanks with white crosses on their turrets have recently reappeared on Russian soil in the Kursk region — although they, like eight decades ago, were set on fire by Russian soldiers and could not stay long.

During the recent St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a meeting with heads of major media outlets around the world, was asked whether Germany might play a mediating role in the Ukraine issue. Putin clearly stated that Moscow views Germany "not as a neutral country, but as a supporter of Ukraine, and in some cases even as a participant in these military operations."

Why did Russia only now decide to withdraw from the military-technical cooperation agreement with Germany? After all, since at least 2014, the situation has been clear, so what were we waiting for?

"Free Media" interviewed Artyom Sokolov, a senior researcher at the European Research Center of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Russian Foreign Ministry and a candidate of sciences:

"In fact, this agreement has long been a dead letter, and the withdrawal was not a sudden decision.

Why was it only now officially announced? I think this step has symbolic significance. Although relations between Russia and Germany have deteriorated in recent years, we have never had a precedent of terminating a major intergovernmental agreement, and now we have set the first such precedent.

I think the most important part of the agreement is Article 5, which regulates the procedures for transferring products developed within the cooperation framework — that is, such transfers require mutual approval from both Russia and Germany."

Question (SP): Why is this provision so important?

Sokolov: "Because in the current international environment, this provision is no longer feasible. It is impossible to continue such cooperative development and transfer of results to a third party from either the Russian or the German perspective.

It should be noted that in order to implement this agreement, an intergovernmental committee was established in the 1990s, responsible for determining the main directions of cooperation, which included discussions on the maintenance of Soviet-era weapons — weapons inherited by the German Federal Armed Forces from the former East German Army, where Russian experts were actually irreplaceable, especially in maintaining the MiG-29 fighter jets of the German Federal Armed Forces after the reunification of Germany.

But times have changed. As President Putin has repeatedly emphasized (including in his recent meeting with representatives of foreign media in St. Petersburg), Russian-German relations are at their lowest point in history, and this agreement naturally lost its significance — which is also pointed out in the statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry."

Question: Has the Russian-German relationship now reached a point of no return, and what is the future outlook?

Sokolov: "Looking at the history of our relations with Western countries (including Germany), periods of confrontation and normalization often alternate rapidly.

Improvement in the quality of dialogue sometimes appears under seemingly the most unlikely conditions. For example, during the height of the Cold War in 1983–1984, the 'new political thinking' was already introduced in 1987, and relations with Western countries were further developed.

Looking back at the history of the easing of international tensions, from the Berlin crisis and the Cuban missile crisis (which almost led to nuclear war) to the implementation of the détente policy, the interval was less than five years.

Therefore, I believe that the current crisis does not necessarily lead to a breakdown.

More importantly, our guiding documents (especially the current foreign policy doctrine) clearly specify mechanisms for resuming dialogue with the West (including European partners), and these conditions are clear and transparent.

Therefore, the possibility of changing the current negative trend always exists — I say again, regardless of how we feel at this moment, there is no inevitable negative outcome."

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7519415761715118631/

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