The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that the conditions for a nuclear treaty with the United States have “disappeared.” Moscow “no longer considers itself bound” by the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with the U.S., as the necessary conditions for it have “disappeared,” according to a statement from the MOD.
The INF Treaty banning ground-launched missiles with ranges of 500–5,500km collapsed in 2019 when the US withdrew, citing Russian violations. Moscow has denied the claims, accusing the US itself of developing banned missiles.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the collapse of this treaty will eat away at the already fragile global security network. “The Russian Foreign Ministry notes the disappearance of conditions for maintaining the unilateral moratorium on the deployment of similar weapons and is authorized to state that Russia no longer considers itself bound by the corresponding self-imposed restrictions previously adopted,” the statement reads, according to a report by RT.
According to the ministry, the “actions of Western countries” are creating a “direct threat” to Russian security. It also noted that last year, the US deployed a Typhoon missile launcher in the Philippines. The statement also referenced the Talisman Sabre exercise in Australia, where the US Army also fired Typhon.
The Typhon is a mobile ground-based launcher designed to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles (range up to 1,800km) and SM-6 multipurpose missiles (range up to 500km).-RT
The Russian statement added further: “Decisions on specific parameters of response measures will be made by Russia’s leadership based on an interagency analysis of the scale of the deployment of American and other Western ground-based intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles, as well as the overall development of the situation in the field of international security and strategic stability.”
U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the INF during his first term in the White House. He also withdrew from the 1992 Open Skies Treaty, which allowed conducting surveillance flights over each other’s territory. Analysts have said that these moves suggest that he would resume negotiations on maintaining the existing restrictions on nuclear weapons with Russia.
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