Putin claims that Russia might start deploying its intermediate-range missiles worldwide again

Vladimir Putin, the president, stated on Friday that Russia has to start producing nuclear-capable missiles with intermediate and shorter ranges again and think about where to place them after the US ships such missiles to Europe and Asia.

Amidst concerns that China and the two largest nuclear powers in the world would start a new arms race, Putin’s move effectively ends all remaining provisions of one of the most important arms controls accords of the Cold War.

When Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan signed the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 1987, it was the first time that the superpowers had come to an agreement to cut back on their nuclear arsenals and remove an entire class of nuclear weapons.

Under former President Donald Trump, the US formally withdrew from the INF Treaty in 2019 after claiming that Moscow was breaking the agreement, a claim that the Russian government has consistently refuted and written off as a pretext.

Then, Russia put a stop to its own missile development, including ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of 500–5,500 km, which had previously been outlawed under the INF pact.

Putin stated that although Russia had promised not to use these missiles, the US had started producing them again, had transported them to Denmark for training, and had even sent some to the Philippines.

“We must react to this and decide what steps to take next in this direction,” Putin was seen telling Russia’s Security Council on national television.

“Apparently, we need to start manufacturing these strike systems and then, based on the actual situation, make decisions about where – if necessary to ensure our safety – to place them,” he stated.

DISCONNECTION

The two largest nuclear powers, by far, Russia and the United States, have both voiced sadness over the dissolution of the complex web of arms control accords that aimed to curb the Cold conflict weapons race and lower the risk of nuclear conflict.

In 2018, Trump declared his intention to withdraw from the INF Treaty due to years of alleged Russian violations and his worries about China’s stockpile of intermediate-range missiles.

Putin has already stated that a new arms race would start if the United States withdrew.

The United States openly attributed its departure from the INF Treaty on Russia’s development of the 9M729 ground-launched cruise missile, also referred to as the SSC-8 in NATO.

Putin proposed a moratorium in which he said Russia may agree not to place the missiles in its enclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic coast. The US has tested missiles with a comparable profile since exiting the treaty.

Putin threatened earlier this month to place conventional missiles within striking range of the US and its European allies in exchange for allowing Ukraine to use long-range Western weaponry to penetrate deeper into Russia.

Putin did not specify the possible location of the missiles’ deployment in his remarks on Friday.