MOSCOW (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia would resume production of short and medium range nuclear-capable land-based missiles due to what he said were moves by the United States to deploy them in both Europe and Asia.
The United States formally withdrew from the landmark 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia in 2019 after saying that Moscow was violating the accord, an accusation the Kremlin denied.
Russia then imposed a moratorium on its own development of missiles previously banned by the INF treaty.
“It is known that the United States not only produces these missile systems, but has already brought them to Europe for exercises in Denmark,” Putin told a meeting of Russia’s Security Council.
“It was recently announced that they are in the Philippines. It is not known whether they took the missiles out of there or not.”
Putin said that Russia was thus forced to respond.
“Apparently, we need to start manufacturing these strike systems and then, based on the actual situation, make decisions about where – if necessary to ensure our safety – to place them,” Putin said.
(Reporting by Dmitry Andtonov and Maxim Rodionov; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
