NEW YORK, July 17. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes that Moscow and Washington would be able to reach mutually acceptable agreements on strategic stability issues, including with regard to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
When asked in a Fox News interview on Monday about Russia’s new offensive weapons, unveiled in March, Putin pointed out that "they were not born out of nowhere."
"They were born as a response to the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the ABM treaty. From the very beginning, we have been warning our American counterparts that we are not going to join this global anti-missile system, we see no purpose for that, but we will do everything to make means of overcoming it," he said.
At the same time, he said Russia was ready to engage in new talks with the United States on agreements that would streamline the production and use of such systems.
"So, what we did now: we just demonstrated that we made it, that we do have means to overcome this system. It’s just a negotiating item. I do hope that in terms of strategic stability, we’ll be able to find a mutually acceptable solution for both sides, and that applies to the INF treaty and to the intermediate and short-range missiles as well," he said.
The INF Treaty was signed in Washington on December 8, 1987, and took effect on June 1, 1988. The INF Treaty eliminated operational and non-operational medium range (1,000-5,500 kilometers) and shorter range (500-1,000 kilometers) ground-launched missiles. By June 1991, the Soviet Union had eliminated 1,846 missiles, while the United States rolled back its arsenal to 846. That said, inspections ended in May 2001.
In 2014, the United States accused Russia of developing a missile with an operational range of 500 to 5,500 km. In 2017, US media outlets reported that the missile was codenamed 9M729 (NATO reporting name: SSC-8). Since then, the US has repeated this claim more than once. Russia emphatically dismissed it saying Washington’s accusations didn’t hold any water. For its part, Russia struck back at the US with counterclaims that America had violated the INF Treaty.