Putin hits back on nuclear claims

President Vladimir Putin has dismissed US claims that Russia is violating a major Cold War treaty limiting mid-range nuclear arms, as a senior general lashed out at Washington’s attempts to “contain” Moscow.

The tense rhetoric comes a day after US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said Washington would withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty in 60 days if Russia does not dismantle missiles that the US claims breach the deal.

“First the American side stated its intention to withdraw from the treaty, then it began to look for the justifications for doing so,” Putin said on Wednesday.

“The primary justification is that we are violating something.

“At the same time, as usual, no evidence of violations on our part has been provided.”

The comments echoed earlier statements from the Russian foreign ministry, which dismissed the accusations against Moscow as groundless.

In October, President Donald Trump sparked global concern by declaring that the US would pull out of the deal and build up its nuclear stockpile “until people come to their senses”.

But on Monday, he said he wanted talks with Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping “to head off a major and uncontrollable arms race”.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said facts had been distorted “to camouflage the true goal of the US withdrawing from the treaty”.

Meanwhile, Russian army chief of staff Vasily Gerasimov said Moscow would increase the capabilities of its groundbased strategic nuclear arms.

“One of the main destructive factors complicating the international situation is how the US is acting as it attempts to retain its dominant role in the world,” he said.

“It is for these purposes that Washington and its allies are taking comprehensive, concerted measures to contain Russia and discredit its role in international affairs.”

Signed in 1987 by then US president Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, the treaty resolved a crisis over Soviet nucleartipped ballistic missiles targeting Western capitals.

But it was a bilateral treaty between the US and the then Soviet Union, so it puts no restrictions on other major military actors like China.

Pompeo said at a meeting with fellow Nato foreign ministers on Tuesday that there was no reason why the US “should continue to cede this crucial military advantage” to rival powers.

Nato said it was now up to Russia to save the treaty.

The Trump administration has complained of Moscow’s deployment of Novator 9M729 missiles, which Washington says fall under the treaty’s ban on missiles that can travel between 500 and 5,500km.

The nuclear-capable Russian cruise missiles are mobile and hard to detect and can hit cities in Europe with little or no warning, Nato says, dramatically changing the security calculus on the continent.

The state department said it had provided Moscow with “more than enough information for Russia to engage substantively on the issue”.

EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini urged Russia and the US to save the treaty.

She said Europe did not want to become a battlefield for global powers again, as it had been during the Cold War.