Russia on Saturday vowed to develop “new types of weapons” as it suspended a Cold War-era nuclear missile treaty with the US, which pulled back from the pact a day earlier, raising the specter of a new arms race.
In a high-stakes tit-for-tat with US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin said: “Our American partners have announced they are suspending their participation in the deal, and we are also suspending our participation.”
Russia would seek to develop medium-range missiles in response to what he said were similar projects in the US, he said.
Photo: Reuters
However, Russia would “not be drawn into a costly new arms race,” Putin said in a televised meeting with Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov and Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu, adding that it would only deploy intermediate and short-range missiles in response to similar moves from the US.
“We will wait until our partners have matured enough to conduct an equal, meaningful dialogue with us on this important topic,” Putin added.
On Friday, Trump said that Washington would start a process to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) agreement within six months.
Both countries have accused each other of violating the INF arms control agreement signed between the US and the former Soviet Union in 1987.
“The Russian Government will procure funds and mechanisms for financing R&D and design of new types of weapons in view of the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty and response steps announced by the Russian President,” Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev tweeted on Saturday.
He called the US withdrawal “unilateral and totally unprovoked,” and said that it “aggravates the situation in international security and strategic stability. It will certainly receive an effective response.”
Brokered by former US president Ronald Reagan and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the treaty ended a superpower buildup of warheads that had frightened Europe. It banned ground-launched missiles with a range of 500km to 5,500km.
The deal addressed Soviet nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles targeting Western capitals, but put no restrictions on other major military actors, such as China.
Trump had said he would like to “get everybody in a big and beautiful room and do a new treaty,” but in the meantime, the US “can’t be put at a disadvantage”.
The US in December last year gave Moscow a 60-day deadline to dismantle missiles it said breached the agreement.
However, Moscow said the disputed 9M729 missile is allowed under the treaty.
Lavrov on Saturday repeated accusations that Washington itself has been in violation of the deal for many years, while Russia “tried everything to save the treaty” in several rounds of diplomatic talks.
The Russian Ministry of Defense accused the US of having taken the decision to withdraw from the INF already “two years before the unfounded public accusations against Russia.”
By 2017, “Washington had not only taken this decision, but also had started preparations for the production of short-range and intermediate range missiles prohibited by the treaty,” the ministry said.
European leaders have voiced fears over the consequences of the treaty’s demise and have called on Russia to address concerns before the US formally leaves in August.
Beijing also expressed concern on Saturday and called for “constructive dialogue.”
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has ruled out the possibility of negotiating a new multilateral pact that includes Beijing.
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