Putin to push ahead with banned nukes
Vladimir Putin has said Russia will develop nuclear weapons prohibited by a centrepiece arms treaty, after Moscow and Washington both abandoned the pact over alleged violations.
The Kremlin said yesterday it was pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), a day after the US announced its withdrawal, accusing Russia of deploying missiles that violated the terms of the agreement.
In a deepening standoff that has prompted warnings of a repeat of a Cold War showdown, Putin said he was ordering the military to develop new land-based weapons previously banned by the INF pact.
Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, said these would include a land-based version of the Kalibr shipbased cruise missile and a new hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile.
Putin said the missiles would not be deployed unless the US also did so, but vowed a ‘‘quid pro quo’’ response.
‘‘Russia will not station intermediate-range weapons in Europe or other regions until similar US weapons -appear in those regions,’’ he said.
Donald Trump, the US president, claimed on Saturday that Moscow was violating the treaty with ‘‘impunity’’ and said Washington would develop its own military response to Russia’s deployment of banned cruise missiles capable of reaching Western Europe.
Moscow has dismissed the claims as fabrications aimed at blaming Russia for the demise of the bilateral 1987 treaty, which was negotiated by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev to end a
Cold War build-up of warheads.
The ratcheting tensions drew calls from Beijing for the two rival powers to ‘‘resolve differences through constructive dialogue’’. Geng Shuang, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, warned that US withdrawal from the treaty could trigger ‘‘a series of negative consequences’’.
But Beijing ruled out joining a new multilateral pact – another irritant to Washington, which says that some 95 per cent of China’s ballistic and cruise missiles would fall foul of the INF treaty if it were party to it.
Putin also said he would review progress on building other weapons not covered by the INF treaty, including the intercontinental Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle and the Poseidon underwater nuclear drone.
The Russian president used his annual address last year to unveil an array of new ‘‘invincible’’ nuclear weapons, including the Avangard which, he said, could travel at 20 times the speed of sound and strike ‘‘like a fireball’’.
He also wants the Russian military to respond to the possible deployment of weapons in space – a move that follows Trump’s announcement last month that he wants to develop space-based sensors and missile defence systems.
‘‘Russia will not station intermediate-range weapons in Europe or other regions until similar US weapons appear in those regions.’’
Vladimir Putin