MOSCOW, July 3. /TASS/. The US believes it needs additional means of deterrence against Russia but Moscow will not give in to blackmail, seeking to balance Washington’s actions related to intermediate and shorter-range missiles, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said.

"They (the Americans - TASS) see us as a geopolitical adversary; they treat China the same way. Accordingly, they believe they need ‘deterrents.’ However, we don’t give in to blackmail and we will balance it all out. As for whether the moratorium [on the deployment of intermediate and shorter-range missiles] has been formally waived or not, I will leave the question to analysts and agencies," the senior diplomat told reporters on the sidelines of the BRICS Civil Forum.

Ryabkov emphasized that the current situation in the field was "highly serious," and it was "still up to the US and its satellites" to choose whether to continue pursuing the path of escalation.

"We all have recently seen a whole series of events stemming from continuing US attempts to raise tensions, particularly through the military and political exploration of areas both in the Asia-Pacific and in the Baltic Sea region, using means that weren’t and could not have been deployed there before the US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty," the Russian deputy foreign minister noted.

He also pointed out that Western statements about Russia posing a threat to someone were nothing but "lies, deceit and disinformation."

INF Treaty situation

Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out at a meeting of the Russian Security Council on June 28 that following Washington’s 2019 withdrawal from the INF Treaty, Moscow had announced a moratorium on the deployment of such missiles as long as the US refrained from deploying them to any region of the world. However, in Putin’s words, news now came that the US is not only producing such missiles but has already brought them to Europe and the Philippines on some occasions.

Putin noted that Russia apparently needed to launch the production of such weapons and, if necessary, make decisions on their deployment.

The US Army earlier announced plans to deploy intermediate-range missiles to Asia in order to contain China.

BRICS forum

The BRICS Civil Forum, which is taking place in Moscow on July 3-4, has brought together over 200 participants from the group’s member states and countries of the Global South. TASS is the event’s general information partner.