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The CFE Treaty Is Dead. Could It Still Inspire a Ceasefire in Ukraine?
March 2025
By Loïc Simonet
There are many factors that could contribute to the end of Russia’s war on Ukraine in 2025: the military escalation by the combatant parties, the weariness of their populations, the strategic stalemate, and President Donald Trump’s promise to resolve the conflict within “24 hours” of taking office.
At their first meeting on February 18 in Saudi Arabia, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed to each appoint high-level teams to work on ending the conflict in Ukraine in a way that is enduring, sustainable, and acceptable to all sides.1 Although Ukraine now has everything to fear from a hasty deal between the two powers, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared that he would “do everything to end this war next year through diplomatic means”2 and would be ready to start negotiations under certain conditions.3 Fifty-two percent of Ukrainians would like to see their country negotiate an end to the hostilities as soon as possible.4
Kyiv’s current priority is to conclude the war on favorable terms and gain maximum leverage over Russia. Over the longer term, a sustainable conflict resolution and a stabilized post-conflict environment will need to include specific arms control measures. The defunct Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty sets out definitions, provisions, procedures, and categories for armament limitation that could one day inspire a comprehensive ceasefire in Ukraine, including monitoring and verification provisions.
Post–Cold War Origins
Signed in Paris November 19, 1990, the CFE Treaty was history’s largest and most complex conventional arms control agreement. It aimed to eliminate disparities between the conventional military potential of the Warsaw Pact and NATO and their capabilities to launch large-scale offensive operations in Europe or regional surprise attacks. The treaty also established numerical ceilings for collective holdings of five categories of armaments (battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, artillery systems, combat aircraft, and attack helicopters) within four different zones stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains.
A separate stability zone with equal subceilings for the European flank in Northern Europe, the eastern Balkans, and the Caucasus region, including Turkey, was created to prevent new subregional force accumulations as well as the possibility of an encircling maneuver. Compliance was assured through a comprehensive set of intrusive verification measures emphasizing on-site inspections.
After 20 years of implementation, the treaty has contributed to the elimination of more than 72,000 pieces of military equipment, enabled more than 5,500 on-site inspections and facilitated the detailed exchange of data. Its value was not only in its effect on force levels, but also on preventative diplomacy, transparency, and exchange of information. Overall, the treaty helped overcome the Cold War division of Europe and provided overall military stability between major powers. It facilitated reduced threat perceptions and increased trust between former adversaries through legally binding mutual reassurances that both sides would exercise military restraint and abandon zero-sum games. In sum, it enabled political détente.
Although the product and symbol of a “new era of democracy, peace and unity in Europe”5 at a rare moment in history, the treaty could not survive the gradual decline and collapse of the post–Cold War order. It started to lose relevance when NATO launched accession negotiations with the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia in 1996. Eventually, attempts to enhance the treaty’s viability and effectiveness by taking into account the changing European security environment and the legitimate security interests of participating states in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) failed.
The process of concluding a CFE Adaptation Agreement, which was signed by all 30 CFE states-parties on the margins of the OSCE summit in Istanbul November 19, 1999, stalled when the George W. Bush administration demanded that Russia withdraw its troops from Moldova and Georgia before the United States and its NATO allies would ratify it. NATO’s further enlargement in 2004 rendered the CFE rationale—maintaining a numerical balance of forces and geographical distance between two groups of states-parties—obsolete. On December 12, 2007, invoking a serious risk to its national security, Moscow suspended its obligations regarding the CFE Treaty.
Russia’s 2008 war in Georgia, its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, and the stationing of Russian forces in those disputed territories without Georgia’s consent further complicated attempts to revive conventional arms control. On November 22, 2011, the U.S. Department of State announced that the United States “would cease carrying out certain [CFE] obligations with regard to Russia”6; NATO allies followed suit. On March 11, 2015, Russia suspended its participation in the joint consultative group, which oversaw the treaty’s implementation, although its allies Armenia, Belarus and Kazakhstan remained in the pact.
The War in Ukraine and CFE
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and NATO support for Kyiv in that war provided the pretext for Moscow’s complete withdrawal from the treaty. In May 2023, the Russian Duma voted unanimously to terminate the landmark pact, as requested by President Vladimir Putin. Six months later, at midnight November 7, the legal waiting period for withdrawal was over. As the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, “Thus, the international legal document, the operation of which was suspended by our country in 2007, has become history for Russia once and for all.”7 In turn, NATO allies decided to suspend operation of the treaty for as long as necessary. The collapse of a legally binding arms control regime that was once labelled a “cornerstone of European security” went almost unnoticed amid the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip.
Today, the CFE Treaty seems beyond repair. Yet, among many reasons for opposing Russia’s determination to consign it to the history books for good, one at least deserves serious attention: the treaty mechanisms and spirit may well inspire the peace deal that one day will end the conflict in Eastern Europe.
Russia’s war in Ukraine, the first major, full-scale conflict in Europe since World War II, has been conventional by nature. Since Moscow launched what it euphemistically called a “special military operation,” the war has been a land-heavy, World War II–type offensive operation and not a 21st-century conflict.8 Pictures of shattered Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers destroyed by anti-tank missiles have become a routine sight on the battlefield. Despite Putin’s heightening nuclear rhetoric calling into question longstanding global norms against the use and testing of nuclear weapons, the war in Ukraine so far has not gone beyond the limits of a classic war as theorized by Carl von Clausewitz. Although potential harbingers of a dangerous cycle of escalation, Ukraine’s recent strike with U.S.-supplied longer-range missiles into Russian territory and Russia’s use of its new intermediate-range hypersonic Oreshnik missile have not undermined the conventional nature of the conflict.
This is why efforts to support a Russian-Ukrainian ceasefire will have to include specific conventional arms control measures. The many one-off, short-term ceasefires negotiated between the Ukrainian armed forces and the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk by the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine between 2014 and 2022 set a precedent by banning the use of certain types of armaments and the deployment of heavy weapons in and around specified areas.9 A geographically localized, conventional arms control regime complemented by confidence-building measures could make a significant contribution to de-escalating hostilities, and to rebuilding confidence and stability. It also could facilitate ‘windows of silence’, an OSCE term referring to temporary ceasefires for rescuing civilians and repairing critical infrastructure. Such a pause might allow for negotiation; support the disengagement of forces and withdrawal of troops and heavy weapons with transparency and verification measures; and address the risk of weapons diversion to unauthorized end users, thus increasing the chances of a successful ceasefire.
A “mini-CFE” could be fit for this purpose.10 It could act as a complement to other traditional components of a ceasefire—the armistice commission, possible peacekeeping troops and international observers operating on the ground—and strengthen their stabilizing effect.
The CFE Treaty already has inspired one arrangement of this kind. Article IV of the Dayton Peace Accords on Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was concluded in 1996 and provided the framework for negotiations on a subregional arms control agreement in the Balkans, used a process based on the CFE Treaty to ensure transparent withdrawal of the warring armies and subsequent equipment reductions. A “sub-regional expression of the CFE,” the Dayton agreement established numerical ceilings in the same five categories of heavy conventional armaments, resulting in the destruction of 6,580 heavy weapons.11 In addition, the Dayton agreement provided for specific reduction methods, an extensive exchange of information and intrusive inspections. Although the political provisions of the Dayton Peace Accords, which created a state comprised of two multiethnic entities, have been criticized, their subregional arms control mechanism has been successfully implemented.12
The definitions, provisions, procedures, and categories for armaments limitation set forth in the CFE Treaty, its 1999 adaptation, and Article IV of the Dayton agreement could offer useful terms of reference for post-war negotiations in Ukraine regarding restrictions on military deployments in designated geographical areas; restrictions on location and withdrawal of heavy weapons; and numerical limits on holdings of agreed categories of armament, and their reduction. The CFE/Article IV categories would need to be updated to include a new generation of weapons that has emerged beyond the scope of those earlier agreements, namely unmanned aerial vehicles, which have had considerable impact on the war in Ukraine.
A prospective Russian-Ukrainian agreement also would have to set guidelines for the notification of certain planned military activities, including international military assistance and training programs; and the exchange of information and data, including on arms diversion which is a growing problem in wartime Ukraine.
Compliance with certain steps of the ceasefire—such as the withdrawal of heavy weapons, disarmament, destruction, and decommissioning of weapons—would need a verification mechanism. Although in recent years verification possibilities have been improved substantially, the far-reaching verification regime common to the CFE Treaty and Article IV could provide the combatants with a pattern that they could adapt.
Over the longer term, a CFE-inspired regime could facilitate the reunification with Ukraine of the four oblasts annexed by Russia. In this regard, West Germany is now considered a possible status model for Ukraine,13 supported by a growing part of the Ukrainian population.14 This model would ensure NATO membership for Kyiv-controlled parts of Ukraine—an option that remains a ‘no go’ for Moscow—and leave the 20 percent of Ukrainian territory under Russian control subject to future negotiation. In that context, it should be recalled that the CFE Treaty, by eliminating the potential for surprise attacks and assuring geostrategic restraint between the two Cold War blocs15, made the German reunification more acceptable to Russia.
The CFE Treaty is not the only post–Cold War relic that could be reinvigorated to frame the implementation of a ceasefire in Ukraine. The Open Skies Treaty, from which the United States withdrew in 2020, also could be used to support monitoring and observation of troop movements. Reinvigorating the mechanisms of the CFE and Open Skies treaties for the purpose of a ceasefire could serve as a starting point for rebuilding a much-needed arms control regime adapted to the existing geopolitical environment and able to succeed over the eroded post–Cold War mechanisms. As two experts outlined, the “specific arms control arrangements negotiated for Russia and Ukraine in the context of a durable armistice of that conflict might serve as a starting point for imagining a broader arms control regime fit for current purposes.”16 Arms control, including a CFE Treaty–inspired mechanism, would then be the condition for a successful ceasefire arrangement and for lasting peace-and-security in Europe.
The OSCE also could help advance a ceasefire in Ukraine and broader European stability. Although it had its own legal existence, the CFE Treaty was negotiated under the auspices of the Vienna-based organization and the upheavals that have shaken the treaty have mirrored those of the OSCE. After a decade of turmoil in Ukraine, the institution stands at an existential crossroad, undermined by divisions and fighting for its own political survival. However, as with the CFE Treaty, the OSCE still can be helpful. With the experience of and lessons learned from its Special Monitoring Mission, a cutting-edge peace operation in Ukraine in 2014–2022, the OSCE could monitor a ceasefire and its arms control component.
The rapidly changing war in Ukraine presents the CFE Treaty and its sister institution with new opportunities for advancing European stability.
ENDNOTES
1. U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Russia, “Secretary Rubio’s Meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov,” February, 18, 2025.
2. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, interview with the Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine, November 16, 2024, published online by The Kyiv Independent, November 16, 2024.
3. Zelenskyy, interview with Sky News, November 30, 2024.
4. Benedict Vigers, “Half of Ukrainians Want Quick, Negotiated End to War,” Gallup, November 19, 2024.
5. Charter of Paris for a New Europe, 1990.
6. Victoria Nuland, “Implementation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces In Europe,” U.S. Department of State, November 22, 2011.
7. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, “Foreign Ministry statement on the completion of the procedure for the Russian Federation’s withdrawal from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE Treaty),” November 7, 2023.
8. Craisor-Constantin Ionita, “Conventional and Hybrid Actions in the Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine,” Security & Defence Quarterly, 2023, Vol. 44, No. 4, p. 14.
9. See for instance Press Statement of Special Representative Grau after the regular Meeting of Trilateral Contact Group on July 22, 2020.
10. Robert Legvold, “Putin Invades Ukraine: Early Considerations for Arms Control and International Order,” Hoover Institution, December 19, 2022.
11. Carlo Trezza, “Reviving the Florence disarmament agreement,” NATO Defence College Foundation, December 29, 2023.
12. XIV Review Conference on implementation of Dayton Article IV Agreement, Vienna, November 7, 2024.
13. Anchal Vohra, “Ukraine Could Be the Next West Germany,” Foreign Policy, July 10, 2023.
14. Martin Fornusek, “70% of Ukrainians support ‘West German’ model for NATO accession, survey shows,” The Kyiv Independent, December 10, 2024.
15. Article 3 of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (September 12, 1990) refers to the CFE Treaty and to the commitment of the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany to reduce the strength of the armed forces of the united Germany.
16. Samuel Charap and Jeremy Shapiro, “Elements of an Eventual Russia-Ukraine Armistice and the Prospect for Regional Stability in Europe,” Stimson Center, December 14, 2023.
Loïc Simonet, a researcher at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs, was a senior adviser to the French Permanent Representation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in 2008–2012 and involved closely in implementing the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and attempting to revive it.