Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the United States (U.S.) against deploying long-range missiles in Germany, saying Russia, in that case, would restart production of intermediate-range nuclear weapons and station similar missiles within striking distance of the West.
The U.S. on July 10 said it would start deploying long-range missiles in Germany from 2026 as part of a longer-term militarisation that will include SM-6, Tomahawk cruise missiles and developmental hypersonic weapons.
In a speech to sailors from Russia, China, Algeria and India to mark the Russian Navy Day in the former imperial capital of St Petersburg, Putin yesterday said the US risked triggering a Cold War-style missile crisis with the move.
“The flight time to targets on our territory of such missiles, which in the future may be equipped with nuclear warheads, will be about 10 minutes,” Putin said.
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“We will take mirror measures to deploy, taking into account the actions of the United States, its satellites in Europe and in other regions of the world.”
Such missiles, which can travel between 500 and 5,500km (310-3,420 miles), were the subject of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed by the US and the Soviet Union in 1987. But both Washington and Moscow withdrew from the arms control treaty in 2019, each accusing the other of violations.
Putin, who sent his army into Ukraine in 2022, casts the war as part of a historic struggle with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Soviet Union fell in 1991 by encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence.
Ukraine and the West say Putin is engaged in an imperial-style landgrab. They have pledged to defeat Russia, which currently controls about 18 percent of Ukraine, including Crimea, and parts of four regions in eastern Ukraine.