Foreign Ministry: Russia may withdraw from the moratorium on the deployment of missiles

Moscow may retreat from the moratorium on the deployment of ground-based intermediate- and shorter-range missiles due to Washington’s actions. About it declared Director of the Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Russia Vladimir Ermakov in an interview with TASS.

According to Ermakov, Russia will adhere to the moratorium depending on the appearance of US missile weapons in the Asia-Pacific region (APR) and its “speed characteristics”.

“[Это] far from the only criterion by which we will evaluate such deployments. The range of missile systems is no less important,” said the head of the department. It can already be said that “the destabilizing military programs of the United States and its allies” make such a moratorium “increasingly fragile,” Yermakov stressed.

The United States withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) in the summer of 2019. The agreement provided for the elimination of ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles of medium range (from 1000 to 5500 km) and shorter range (from 500 to 1000 km) with a ban on their development and deployment. The reason for this decision in the United States was called violations by Russia. Moscow denied these accusations.

On April 21 this year, Ambassador-at-Large of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Grigory Mashkov in an article for the International Affairs magazine declaredthat after the termination of the INF Treaty, the Pentagon began to develop such missiles and intends to place them, in particular, “near our borders.”

At the end of February, during his address to the Federal Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the suspension of Russia’s participation in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). On February 28, the President signed the corresponding law.

Then Peskov noted that Russia was not leaving the arms reduction treaty, but it was only about suspension. According to him, Russia’s goal is to make sure that nuclear parity is observed, taking into account the arsenals of France and Great Britain, which are not included in the perimeter of the agreement.

In addition, the Ministry of Defense and the Russian Foreign Ministry said that, despite the suspension of participation in START III, Russia will continue to comply with restrictions on the number of carriers of nuclear warheads. Major General Yevgeny Ilyin, Deputy Head of the Main Directorate for International Military Cooperation of the Russian Defense Ministry, said that the Russian Federation would not stop the process of exchanging notifications under the agreement.