MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/. Facts show that the United States violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, while Washington has never furnished any evidence of Russia’s violation of its obligations under the document, a Russian Foreign Ministry source told TASS in the run-up to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s visit to Washington.
"The Americans have failed to furnish any factual evidence to substantiate their claims regarding the INF Treaty, which they use to justify their withdrawal. They just named the index of one of our missiles, 9M729, and the test date at Kapustin Yar. However, we explained that its range is less than 500 kilometers, which the US military could see from their satellites," the source stressed. "The fact that they failed to provide any data recorded by technical surveillance means speaks for itself."
Russia has repeatedly voiced concern about how Washington complied with the INF Treaty, the source stressed. "For example, in 2018, allegedly 'in response' to Russia’s 'violations,' the US Congress openly funded the development of ground-launched missiles with a prohibited range of 500 to 5500 kilometers," he noted.
"In 2015, the United States deployed MK-41 launching systems to a missile base in Romania capable of not only launching interceptors but also Tomahawk attack missiles. It has long been announced that the same [systems] should appear in Poland in 2020," the source recalled.
"The proof of fact of the US violation of the agreement is that it began testing systems prohibited under the treaty on August 18, that is, just 16 days after its termination [on August 2]. [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s proposal for a mutual moratorium on deploying intermediate- and shorter-range ground-launched missiles was rejected by Washington, which announced plans to begin their deployment in Asia (allegedly to contain China) and did not rule out the same could be done in Europe," the source stressed.