The Vienna Document is a series of agreements on confidence and security-building measures in relation to military resources between the states of Europe, starting in 1990, with subsequent updates in 1992, 1994, 1999 and 2011.
[1][2] The Vienna Document on CSBMs and the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) were seen as parallel peace process components.
Russian suspension of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) in 2007 complicated negotiations for updating the Vienna Document.
[4] Four Vienna Document Plus decisions, including prior notification of sub-threshold major military activities and on the lengths of air base visits, were added in 2012 and 2013.
[1] In 2017, the Vienna Document, the CFE and the Treaty on Open Skies were seen by the OSCE as "a web of interlocking and mutually reinforcing arms control obligations and commitments" that "together ... enhance predictability, transparency and military stability and reduce the risk of a major conflict in Europe.
[6] Updates to the Vienna Document proposed around 2016 include lowering the threshold for prior notification of military activities, risk reduction (Chapter III) proposals, additional or stronger inspections, independent fact-finding missions, and creating a centralised OSCE database on OSCE participating states' main weapons systems.
[9] Russia used the provisions of the Document in early April 2015 to force NATO to agree to a Russian inspection team being present at the 2015 Joint Warrior exercise off the coast of Scotland.
[14] The Defence Minister, Artis Pabriks, described the Russian reason for refusal as[13]"a poor excuse" that "raise[d] suspicions that Russia want[ed] to hide something by not disclosing the actual scope and intent of its military movements as required by [the] OSCE cooperation framework".
[13]On 10 February 2022, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania invoked the Vienna Document 2011, requesting information from Belarus on "the total number of troops, battle tanks, armoured combat vehicles, artillery pieces, mortars and rocket launchers, envisaged sorties per aircraft, and rapid-reaction forces" of the Union Resolve 2022 military exercise planned for Russian forces during 10–20 February 2022 in Belarus.
[15] The Russian ambassador to Belarus, Boris Gryzlov, stated in a television interview that the forces involved were below the notification limit, and "therefore there is nothing to worry about".