Putin signed a decree on Russia's withdrawal from the rocket treaty with the United States

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the suspension by Russia of the implementation of the Treaty between the USSR and the USA on the elimination of medium and shorter-range missiles. This is stated on the official Kremlin site.

Фото: Depositphotos

The text says that the decree was signed “based on the need to take urgent measures in connection with the violation by the United States of America of its obligations under the Treaty between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles of December 8, 1987.”

Putin suspended the implementation of the treaty “until the United States of America eliminates its violations of obligations under the said Treaty or until its termination” and ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation to send a notification about this to the states parties to the treaty. The decree comes into force on March 4.

What is the INF Treaty?

The Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles was signed by the leaders of the United States and the USSR in December 1987. He was called the beginning of the end of the Cold War. The document prohibits both countries to use and deploy ballistic and cruise ground-based missiles of medium (1000-5500 km) and short (500-1000 km) range.

Other existing nuclear powers - including China - did not sign the INF.

Washington has repeatedly accused Moscow of violating the provisions of the document due to Russia's development of a ground-based cruise missile 9М729 (SSC-8 according to NATO classification), the range of which, according to the American side, does not comply with the terms of the agreement.

December 5 US Department of State declared that Russia hid existence of the rocket 9M729, which is designed and manufactured in violation of the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles.

The Russian side, in turn, accuses the United States of deploying launchers for air defense systems in Romania, which can be equipped including medium-range cruise missiles. It is about the Aegis Ashore complex, which took up combat duty at the Deveselu military base in Romania.

The Treaty on Offensive Arms Reduction (START-3) between Russia and the USA 8 years ago was signed by Presidents of the two countries Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama. It became the seventh treaty on the reduction of strategic nuclear forces concluded between Moscow and Washington.

The term START-3 expires in 2021, but the deterioration of relations between Russia and the United States puts the extension of the treaty in question. If the situation develops under an optimistic scenario, the termination of existing agreements will lead to the formation of a new system of arms limitation treaties. In a negative scenario, the end of the INF and START-3 may mean the collapse of the entire arms control system.

From 2 February United States unilaterally suspended all obligations according to the INF Treaty. “We will do the following. Our answer will be a mirror one. American partners announced that they are suspending their participation in the agreement, and we are suspending,” then declared Vladimir Putin at a meeting with the Ministers of Defense and Foreign Affairs Sergey Shoigu and Sergey Lavrov.

On February 20, in his message to the Federal Assembly on February 20, 2019, the Russian President spent most of his time (1 hour 15 minutes out of a total time of 1 hour 26 minutes) on social problems, but also told the world about Russia's latest military developments. In particular, he said that Russia has missiles that can be aimed at “decision-making centers” in the United States. The head of Russia almost directly threatened US missile leadershipthat are able to fly to Washington and New York.

Фото: Depositphotos

What's next

According to one of the sources of the Bloomberg agency, the Pentagon is not only planning to announce the suspension of the treaty, but also notified the Senate Commission on Armed Forces that the US administration is going to withdraw from the treaty in six months.

And if in half a year the INF Treaty is likely to go down in history, does this mean that Russia and the United States will immediately start developing, producing and deploying previously banned missiles?

The most optimistic scenario that you can count on is if the United States and Russia, after withdrawing from the treaty, declare that they will voluntarily comply with its restrictions, said Alexander Yermakov, a military commentator at the Russian International Affairs Council.

However, he said, it is better to count on a more realistic scenario in which the United States and Russia develop new missile systems, but the Americans do not deploy them in Europe. “This is supported by numerous statements by European officials that there are no plans to deploy the systems in Europe,” says Ermakov. True, he stipulates that we are most likely talking only about nuclear complexes.

No country has any ready-made medium-range ballistic missiles, although in this area, according to an expert, Russia has advanced further than the United States. But both countries lag far behind China.

According to Vasily Kashin, senior researcher at the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the HSE, the confrontation between China and the United States will not be in favor of the latter, since China has an advantage in this field for decades. According to him, in the few years that the United States will need to develop and test missiles, China will be able to dramatically increase the production of existing medium-range ballistic missiles and invest in the development of new ones.

According to the head of the Russian International Affairs Council, Andrei Kortunov, the world is entering a period when it will have to live for some time without nuclear arms treaties: “This is a gray zone in which there will be mutual accusations, mutual criticism, a little military hysteria, of course There will be an arms race, perhaps not on the same scale as during the Cold War, but there will be one in some form.”

He believes that it is hardly worth counting on the speedy conclusion of a new treaty on the limitation of nuclear weapons between different members of the nuclear club. But work in this direction, he believes, will lead to improved contacts between the military. This process will create a system that increases trust, and, as a result, stability.

About what else threatens the withdrawal of both parties from the contract, read in our material 8 troubling questions about the consequences of breaking the rocket agreement between Russia and the United States.

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