The suspension comes amid worsening relations with Europe and Washington on a range of fronts, including the US’ plans for a missile shield in eastern Europe, proposed independence for Serbia’s Kosovo province and Moscow’s energy policies.
“Russian threats have materialised and I don’t exclude that more steps could follow,” said Yevgeny Volk, the head of the Washington-based Heritage Foundation think-tank.
“If there is no agreement with the United States on the missile shield, Russia could potentially go ahead with its threats to retarget (at Europe) and redeploy missiles — something we have already seen in the 1970s.”
The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin had signed a decree suspending Russia’s role in the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty for reasons of “national security”.
1990 treaty
The pact was adopted in 1990 to limit the number of tanks, heavy artillery and combat aircraft deployed and stored between the Atlantic and Russia’s Ural mountains.
Russia has criticised the West for failing to ratify a version amended to take into account the new post-Cold War situation. Talks last month with NATO states ended without progress. A NATO spokesman said on Saturday of the Russian suspension: “If this is confirmed the Secretary General very much regrets this decision. The allies consider this treaty to be an important cornerstone of European security.”
A spokeswoman for the EU,  foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the EU also regretted the Russian move. Britain too called the CFE a “cornerstone” of European security.
Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said the Russian decision was “disconcerting”. “Perhaps this is a pretext, one that may be related to the plans to build the missile shield facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic,” he said. “It could also be related to internal reasons, a way of showing Russia’s strength ahead of the presidential campaign.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Saturday the country would now stop providing information and stop allowing inspections of its heavy weapons and would decide unilaterally on how many tanks or aircraft were in each region.
But it added: “The Russian moratorium on the CFE pact does not mean that we are fully shutting the door for dialogue.”
Anti-US rhetoric
Mr Putin is due to step down in March 2008, when his second term expires. Anti-US and anti-Western rhetoric traditionally grows in Russia before elections. In February Putin stunned the West by accusing Washington of trying to dominate the world.
Moscow has since threatened to create an OPEC-style gas cartel and deploy missiles in its Western enclave Kaliningrad.
A source of friction over the CFE treaty is NATO’s insistence on preserving “flanking arrangements” which ban large concentrations of forces and materiel near some borders.
Russia objects to that provision because it limits troop movements within Russian territory, though Moscow says its border areas have become unstable since the Soviet Union broke up in 1991.