Written by Anton Kolodyazhny and Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Sunday that Russia will lift a moratorium on the deployment of medium- and short-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads because the United States has deployed such weapons in various regions around the world.
The Russian move, which has long been signaled, would wipe out all that remains of one of the most important arms control treaties of the Cold War, amid fears that the world's two largest nuclear powers will enter into a new arms race with China.
Russia and the United States, which acknowledge that their relations are worse than at any time since the height of the Cold War, have lamented the unraveling of interlocking arms control treaties that sought to slow the arms race and reduce risks. From nuclear war.
In response to a question from the RIA news agency whether Russia could withdraw from the New START Treaty before its expiration in February 2026, Lavrov said that there were currently “no conditions” for holding a strategic dialogue with Washington.
Lavrov said: “It is clear today, for example, that our moratorium on the deployment of short- and medium-range missiles is no longer practically applicable and must be abandoned.”
He added: “The United States has arrogantly ignored the warnings of Russia and China, and has practically moved to deploying weapons of this type in different regions of the world.”
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan in 1987, was the first time that major powers agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals and eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons.
The United States under former President Donald Trump formally withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019 after it said Moscow was violating the pact, an accusation the Kremlin has repeatedly denied and dismissed as an excuse.
Russia then imposed a moratorium on development of missiles previously banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, namely ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of 500 kilometers to 5,500 kilometers (310 miles to 3,417 miles).
Trump said in 2018 that he wanted to end the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty because of what he said were years of Russian violations and his concerns about China's intermediate-range missile arsenal.
The United States has publicly blamed Russia for the development of the ground-launched 9M729 cruise missile, known in NATO as the SSC-8, as a reason for its exit from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
In his proposal to stop missile launches, Putin indicated that Russia could agree not to deploy missiles in the Kaliningrad region, located on the Baltic Sea coast. Since withdrawing from the agreement, the United States has tested missiles with similar characteristics.
Russia launched a new medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile known as “Oreshnik” or “Hazel Tree” at Ukraine on November 21 in what Putin said was a direct response to Ukrainian forces' strikes on Russia with US and British missiles.
