Let’s avoid missile crisis, says Putin
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow is militarily ready for a Cuban missile-style crisis if the Americans wanted one and threatened to place hypersonic nuclear missiles on ships or submarines near US territorial waters.
The Cuban Missile Crisis erupted in 1962 when Moscow responded to a US missile deployment in Turkey by sending ballistic missiles to Cuba, sparking a standoff that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
More than five decades on, tensions are rising once again over Russian fears that the US might deploy intermediaterange nuclear missiles in Europe, as a landmark Cold War-era arms-control treaty unravels.
Putin detailed his warning for the first time, saying Russia could deploy hypersonic missiles on ships and submarines which could lurk outside US territorial waters if Washington now moved to deploy intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe.
“(We’re talking about) naval delivery vehicles, that is, submarines or surface ships. And we can put them, given the speed and range (of our missiles)... in neutral waters. Plus they are not stationary, they move and they will have to find them,” the Russian president said, according to a Kremlin transcript. “You work it out: Mach nine (the speed of the missiles) and over 1,000km (their range).”