The Russian Foreign Ministry announced Washington's violation and "destruction" of the INF Treaty, which for many years served as "one of the pillars of international security and strategic stability." According to the diplomatic department, the United States not only developed and tested ground-based systems with intermediate and shorter-range missiles, forming specialized military units, but also deployed them in various countries around the world. Now, the United States has begun importing the corresponding missile systems into Europe and the Asia-Pacific region under the pretext of NATO exercises, and Russia is forced to give its mirror response to this.
We directly declare that whenever and wherever American-made ground-based INF missiles appear, we reserve the right to respond in a mirror fashion, which will mean the termination of the unilateral Russian moratorium on the deployment of these weapons systems. In response to the actions of the United States, Russia will intensify the refinement and begin production of similar missile systems. Moreover, taking into account the previously announced R&D and the accumulated developments of the Russian military-industrial complex, this process will not take much time. When potentially making decisions on the deployment of such weapons, we reserve the geography of their deployment at our discretion.
The Foreign Ministry also recalled that for Russia, its own "guaranteed protection of sovereignty and territorial integrity" is the "highest priority of Russian policy in the field of military security, including the aspect of nuclear deterrence."
Earlier it became known that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Ministry of Defense to prepare troops for exercises using non-strategic nuclear weapons. Aviation and naval forces of Russia will also be involved in the maneuvers.
Other measures were also taken in this direction. In October 2023, the State Duma considered Russia's withdrawal from the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. In early November of the same year, Vladimir Putin signed the law on the withdrawal of ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
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