WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — US Secretary of Defense James Mattis said in a congressional testimony on Tuesday that Russia most likely has violated the Open Skies Treaty.
"We will be meeting with State Department and National Security staff here in the very near future. There certainly appears to be violations of it [the treaty]," Mattis told the US Senate Armed Services Committee.
The Treaty on Open Skies was signed in March 1992 and became one of the major confidence-building measures in Europe after the Cold War. It entered into force on January 1, 2002, and currently has 34 states parties, including Russia and most NATO members.
