MOSCOW, June 28. /TASS/. The situation around the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was the central topic of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with the Russian Security Council.
"Today, we will discuss Russia’s further steps concerning the unilateral moratorium on the deployment of intermediate-and shorter-range ground-based missiles," he said.
Putin recalled that several years ago the United State had withdrawn from the treaty under an invented pretext and announced its plans to manufacture such missile systems.
In 2019, Russia pledged that it would refrain from manufacturing and deploying such systems as long as the United States refuses to deploy them in any part of the world.
"Now, it is known that the United States not only produced these missile systems, but has already used them during drill in Europe, in Denmark. Not long ago, it was announced that they are in the Philippines. There is no information about whether these missiles were removed from there or not," Putin said.
Russian Foreign and Defense Ministers, Sergey Lavrov and Andrey Belousov, delivered reports on this topic.
Earlier, the United States announced plans to deploy intermediate-range missiles in Asia to contain China.
On August 2, 2019, the United States formally withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, signed by the Soviet Union and the United States on December 8, 1987. The US justified this move by Russia’s alleged refusal to comply with the American ultimatum-like demand that the new 9M729 cruise missiles be eliminated as they violated the INF Treaty. Moscow vehemently denied these accusations, saying that the technical parameters of the 9M729 missile is within the parameters allowed by the treaty and presented counterclaims to Washington.