Anton Novoderezhkin/TASS
The news agency TASS reports (source):
Moscow reserves the right to take measures to respond to Washington’s suspension of its obligations under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) from February 2, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.
“Moscow reserves the right to a corresponding reactions and response measures [following the US’ withdrawal from the INF Treaty]. Naturally, it will be done,” she said in an interview with the 60 Minutes program on the Rossiya-1 television channel.
“As a matter of fact it is only a part of America’s general concept of breaking down and abandoning a great number of international agreements,” she said. “So, it is not about Russia’s guilt of violating this treaty, it is not about China or any other factor of international security. It is about the United States’ strategy of waiving international liabilities in various spheres.”.
US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said earlier on Friday that starting from February 2 Washington was suspending its liabilities under the INF Treaty and would quit it in six months if Russia fails to comply with its demands.
Situation around INF Treaty
The INF, or The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, Treaty was signed between the former Soviet Union and the United States on December 8, 1987 and entered into force on June 1, 1988. In 1992, following the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the treaty was multilateralized with the former Soviet republics – Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine – as successors. The INF Treaty covered deployed and non-deployed ground-based short-range missiles (from 500 to 1,000 kilometers) and intermediate-range missiles (from 1,000 to 5,500 kilometers).
The US accused Russia of violating the treaty for the first time in July 2014. Since then, Washington has been repeating its claims on many occasions, while Moscow has been rejecting them and advancing counter-claims concerning the implementation of the treaty by the US side.
US President Donald Trump said on October 20 that Washington would withdraw from the INF Treaty because Russia was violating the terms of the agreement.
US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said on December 4 that his country would stop fulfilling its liabilities under the INF Treaty unless Russia returned to “full and verifiable” compliance with it within 60 days. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on the following day that the US side had provided no evidence to prove Russia’s alleged violations of the treaty. He stressed that Russia is against dismantling this treaty but will have to react correspondingly if the United States withdraws from it.
It’s hard to understand the Americans, the Russians have a big lead in rocketry, so perhaps the US wants Russia to deploy missiles that are pointed at Europe?
Europe is the loser in this, yet they won’t say a word against it.
Any INF regulations should also includeFrance,British, Germany,Japan and core NATO puppets who have weapons of mass destructions
the eu should immediately make it entirely clear to the destitute states of morons (aka usa) that europe will not accept any missiles on european ground so if the morons are prepared to take on russia (and China) it must be done from the north american land mass. after all, the stupid morons can lay waste to their own land but should leave europe well alone and that includes nato countries as well,
or
Instead of building medium range nukes to counter American medium range nukes, Russia should build more ICBM,s for every medium range American nuke, 2 ICBM’s. Publicly announce the American cities that are targeted, let the American people know, that if they attack Russia, they will die and not their usual foreign cannon fodder. Targeting areas that voted for Trump would be the cherry on top.