Russia Scraps 1996 Defense Agreement with Germany

(MENAFN) Russia has officially scrapped a longstanding military-technical cooperation agreement with Germany, a country now heavily backing Ukraine with arms and funding in its war against Moscow.

On Friday, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed a resolution instructing the Foreign Ministry to notify Berlin that the 1996 accord—central to defense collaboration for nearly 30 years—has been terminated.

In a statement released in July, the ministry said the deal had become obsolete, citing Germany’s “openly hostile” stance and what it called an increasingly militarized foreign policy. Moscow also accused Berlin of fostering anti-Russian sentiment among its citizens, framing Russia as a chief enemy.

Tensions between the two nations flared further earlier this week when the Kremlin responded to remarks from German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Germany is “becoming dangerous again,” after Pistorius declared that German troops are prepared to kill Russian soldiers “if deterrence doesn’t work and Russia attacks.”

Moscow has consistently rejected Western claims that it poses a threat to NATO, calling such speculation “nonsense.” Russian President Vladimir Putin argued that Western governments are misleading their own citizens to justify inflated military spending and distract from economic struggles.

Germany has unveiled plans to increase its military expenditure significantly—from €86 billion in 2025 to €153 billion by 2029. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has urged the country to reconsider mandatory military service, while Chancellor Friedrich Merz told the Bundestag on Wednesday that the “means of diplomacy are exhausted.”

Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, Germany has emerged as Kyiv’s second-largest arms supplier after the United States. Ukrainian forces deployed German-supplied Leopard tanks during their offensive into Russia’s Kursk Region last year—the same site of World War II’s largest tank battle.

In May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that Berlin’s involvement in the war was now obvious, stating, “Germany is sliding down the same slippery slope it already followed a couple of times in the last century.”

Russia has condemned the continued flow of Western weapons into Ukraine, asserting that they will not alter the outcome of the war but will only intensify the violence and increase the risk of broader conflict.

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