[8] In 1972, US president Richard Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev reached a compromise agreement to hold separate political and military negotiations.

In 1986, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev proposed in the context of MBFR negotiations to reduce ground and air forces, and to include conventional and nuclear weapons from the Atlantic to the Urals.

The mandate called for elimination of force disparities, capability for surprise attack, and large-scale offensive operations, and the establishment of an effective verification system.

Bush proposed even steeper reductions, and the Soviet Union negotiated and concluded troop withdrawal agreements with Warsaw Treaty states.

[11] The Vienna Document on confidence- and security-building measures, also first adopted in 1990, and the CFE Treaty, were seen as parallel peace process components by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

In September 2022, the lack of Russian support during the Armenia–Azerbaijan border clashes prompted a national debate in Armenia, as an increasing percentage of the population put into doubt whether it is beneficial to continue CSTO membership, calling for realignment of the state with NATO instead.

[18][19] Moscow continued to participate in the JCG, because it hoped that dialogue could lead to the creation of an effective, new conventional arms control regime in Europe.

Russian diplomat Mikhail Ulyanov said Russia would be unlikely to return to compliance because the accord, "created when the Warsaw Pact was still in existence, is 'anachronistic' and 'absolutely out of sync with the present realities'".

The principal accomplishment was the large-scale reduction or destruction of conventional military equipment in the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains (ATTU) region during the first 5 years the Treaty was in effect.

[35] A June 1998 Clinton administration report stated that Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia and Azerbaijan were not in compliance with the CFE treaty.

[36] Violations ranged from holdings of treaty-limited equipment (TLE) in excess of CFE ceilings to denial of full access during treaty inspections.

The report concluded that the compliance issues were not "militarily significant" and Russia and Ukraine, the former USSR republics with the largest holdings among the Eastern bloc, remained within their treaty limits.

In the run-up to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) November 1999 Istanbul summit, NATO members perceived three treaty compliance problems.

[37] First of all, the continuing existence of Russian equipment holdings in the "flank" region (i.e. Russia's North Caucasus Military District) were in excess of agreed treaty limits.

During the summit, 30 OSCE members signed the adapted CFE treaty and Russia assumed an obligation to withdraw from the Republic of Moldova, reduce her equipment levels in Georgia and agree with the Georgian authorities on the modalities and duration of the Russian forces stationed on the territory of Georgia, and reduce their forces in the flanks to the agreed levels of the Adapted CFE Treaty.

As an additional source of security assurance, the CFE-1A agreement required the parties to provide advanced notification of any increases made to the force levels.

The linkage between the ratification of the adapted treaty and the complete withdrawal was a political decision made by NATO members based on fundamental principles of international law pertaining to the territorial integrity of sovereign states.

[44] As his requests were not met during this conference, Putin issued a decree intended to suspend the observance of its treaty obligations on 14 July 2007, effective 150 days later, stating that it was the result of "extraordinary circumstances ... which affect the security of the Russian Federation and require immediate measures", and notified NATO and its members.

Fourthly, Russia mentioned that the then planned basing of U.S. military units in Romania and Bulgaria "negatively affects" those countries' compliance with the CFE Treaty's force ceilings.

Most likely, but not mentioned in Russia's explanatory document, the above-mentioned "extraordinary circumstances" referred to the US plans for a missile defense complex in Poland, with a radar component in the Czech Republic.

[47][49] Another likely reason is that NATO members refused to ratify the Adapted CFE Treaty due to the continuing presence of several hundred Russian troops in Moldova—something they considered as a violation of the obligations Russia assumed during the 1999 Istanbul summit.

The linkage between these two security issues was a decision made by NATO member states to protest against the Second Chechen War and was used as a reason not to ratify the treaty.

However, he also speculated that Putin's suspension by decree was "primarily an election-year message to the country: 'Your leader won't budge, no matter who formally becomes next President'.

[55] Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) General Secretary Nikolai Bordyuzha and former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev expressed support for Putin's decree.

[57] The Russian Foreign Ministry also said that the consequences of the suspension would be the halting of inspections and verifications of its military sites by NATO countries and that it would no longer have the obligation to limit the number of its conventional weapons.

Yuri Zarakhovich speculated in Time that the above-mentioned "immediate measures" would be a build-up of its forces in areas bordering NATO eastern members, in particular Poland and the Baltic states.