A furious Kremlin has declared it will no longer be restricted by an international freeze on short and medium-range missile deployment. In a chilling series of statements, Russia has ramped up a war of words with Britain, the US and NATO by declaring it no longer respects the Cold War era treaty on self-restrictions regarding deploying the deadly weapons. The move comes days after Trump claimed he had repositioned US submarines, and as Putin’s spies accuse the UK of plotting to sink Russian ships.
Known as the INF Treaty, the document was signed by Washington and Moscow in 1987 and banned the deployment of ground-based and cruise missiles with a range from 500 to 5,500 kilometres (310 and 3,400 miles). President Donald Trump ordered the US withdrawal from the INF during his first term in office in 2019.
With Russia out of the treaty, it could mean short and intermediate weapons could easily reach the UK from Russian territory. Moscow is just 1,700 miles from London, easily within reach of a medium-range missile, which can travel up to 3,400 miles. A short range missile covers a distance of between 190 to 600 miles.
Vladimir Putin has already reportedly moved at least four heavy Tu-95MS nuclear bombers closer to Europe after Donald Trump ordered two nuclear submarines “closer to Russia” as tensions ratchet up between the two atomic armed nations.
In a statement shared by the Russian state TASS news agency, a spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry blamed the move on “developing” US plans to move missiles into Europe.
The statement said: “With our repeated warnings on that matter having gone ignored and the situation developing towards the de facto deployment of US-made intermediate-and shorter-range ground-based missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, the Russian Foreign Ministry has to declare that any conditions for the preservation of a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of similar arms no longer exist, and it is further authorised to state that the Russian Federation does not consider itself bound by relevant self-restrictions approved earlier. “
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia reserves the right to deploy the intermediate-and shorter-range missiles in case of NATO provocations near the country’s borders.
And in an interview with TASS, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov claimed that the existence of Russia’s moratorium on the deployment of the intermediate-and shorter-range missiles is coming to its logical end, as the West did not appreciate Moscow’s restraint.
The move towards derestricting missile deployment comes as the SVR, Moscow’s foreign intelligence service, has been suspected of attempting to instigate a so-called ‘false flag’ event involving the UK. A ‘false flag’ act is when a state orchestrates an attack on itself with the intention of blaming another country for carrying it out, with the purpose of then using the fake event as an excuse to initiate aggression.
According to the Telegraph, a report from the SVR states “British intelligence services are planning to use Nato allies to launch a mass raid on the ‘shadow fleet’; for this purpose, an ecological catastrophe in international waters is being prepared.”
The ‘shadow fleet’ is the term coined to describe Russia’s armada of vessels which it uses to trade oil and other resources with nations willing to ignore international sanctions. However, despite being of economic use to Moscow’s war machine, many of the large ships which make up the fleet are badly maintained and even in danger of sinking.
Dr Sidharth Kaushal, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), a London-based think tank, told the Telegraph: “One interpretation might be that the Russians are insuring themselves against something breaking down or sinking, in a way that creates a pretext for restricting [their movement across the ocean].”