BALASHIKHA, December 22. /TASS/. The United States is violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) and is taking steps to destroy it, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the expanded meeting of the Defense Ministry’s board on Friday.

The target missiles used by the US to test the missile defense system are identical to ballistic missiles of intermediate and shorter range, Putin said. "They already exist and are used. Their production in the US may signal the development of technologies banned under the INF Treaty."

The Pentagon has allocated funds to create a ground-based mobile missile system with the range of up to 5,500 km, he said.

"If fact, the US is taking steps to destroy the INF Treaty," Putin said. "They are always looking for any our violations, but are consistently doing this themselves," he said. The president recalled that the US had acted the same way and "consistently and insistently took steps to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and in the end did it unilaterally." "Certainly, all this seriously downgrades the security level in Europe and the world in general," he said.