Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday ordered the Russian military to work out a quid pro quo response after the test of a new US missile banned under a now-defunct arms treaty.
In the test on Sunday last week, a modified ground-launched version of a US Navy Tomahawk cruise missile accurately struck its target more than 500km away.
The test came after Moscow and Washington withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
Putin said at a meeting of the Russian Security Council that the US is waging a “propaganda campaign,” alleging Russian breaches of the pact, to “untie its hands to deploy the previously banned missiles in different parts of the world.”
He ordered the Russian Ministry of Defense and other agencies to “take comprehensive measures to prepare a symmetrical answer.”
The US said that it withdrew from the treaty because of Russian breaches, a claim that Moscow has denied.
In an interview this week with Fox News, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper asserted that the Russian cruise missiles Washington has long claimed were a contrevention of the now-defunct INF Treaty might be armed with nuclear warheads.
“Right now Russia has possibly nuclear-tipped cruise — INF-range cruise missiles facing toward Europe, and that, that’s not a good thing,” Esper said.
Putin said that the US test was performed from a launcher similar to those deployed at a US missile defense site in Romania, adding that the Romanian facility and a prospective similar site in Poland could also be loaded with missiles intended to hit ground targets instead of interceptors.
Putin had previously pledged that Russia would not deploy missiles banned by the INF Treaty to any area before the US, but he added on Friday that use of the universal launcher means that covert deployment is possible.
“How would we know what they will deploy in Romania and Poland — missile defense systems or strike missile systems with a significant range?” Putin said.
Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Robert Carver disputed Putin’s assertion that the land-based US missile defense system in Romania could be used to launch ground-attack missiles.
The system, known as Aegis Ashore, “does not have the capability to fire offensive weapons of any kind,” Carver added. “It can only launch the SM-3 interceptor, which does not carry an explosive warhead.”
Russia has long charged that the US launchers loaded with missile defense interceptors could be used for firing surface-to-surface missiles.
Putin said that the US test proved that US denials are false.
The missile test, just 16 days after the INF Treaty’s termination has shown that the US had long started work on the new systems banned by the treaty.
While Putin did not spell out possible retaliatory measures, some Moscow-based military experts theorized that Russia could adapt the sea-launched Kalibr cruise missiles for use from ground launchers.
The Interfax news agency quoted a retired Russian general, Vladimir Bogatyryov, as saying that Moscow could put such missiles in Cuba or Venezuela if the US deploys new missiles near Russian borders.
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