Russia withdrew Saturday from a landmark 1987 nuclear disarmament treaty as President Vladimir Putin signaled he's open to new talks, the Kremlin said, a day after President Donald Trump announced the U.S. is pulling out of the agreement, citing years of Russian violations.
Putin disclosed the plan to suspend the Ronald Reagan-Mikhail Gorbachev agreement during a working meeting Saturday with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, according to the Kremlin.
Russia is open to further negotiations and promised a "mirror answer" to Trump, Putin said without elaborating, according to the Kremlin. Putin said the country also is suspending work on a hypersonic ground-based rocket of medium range.
Trump said Friday that the U.S. was suspending its obligations under the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, starting the clock for withdrawal six months from now, unless Russia "comes back into compliance by destroying all of its violating missiles, launchers, and associated equipment."
Trump said in a statement that the U.S. will "move forward" with developing its own military response options to Russia's new land-based cruise missiles that could target western Europe.
After the U.S. gave notice of its intention to withdraw, Putin said Russia would do the same. He ordered the development of new land-based intermediate-range weapons but emphasized that Russia won't deploy them in the European part of the country or elsewhere unless the U.S. does so.
"We will respond quid pro quo," Putin said. "Our American partners have announced they were suspending their participation in the treaty, and we will do the same. They have announced they will conduct research and development, and we will act accordingly."
The U.S. has accused Russia of developing and deploying a cruise missile that violates provisions of the pact that ban production, testing and deployment of land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 310 to 3,410 miles. Trump's move also reflected his administration's view that the pact was an obstacle to efforts to counter intermediate-range missiles deployed by China, which isn't part of the treaty.
Moscow has denied any breaches and accused Washington of making false accusations in order to justify its pullout.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in explaining that the U.S. on Saturday formally suspended its treaty obligations, said in a statement that Russia's "continued noncompliance has jeopardized the United States' supreme interests." He said the treaty will terminate in six months unless Moscow returns to "full and verifiable compliance."
The suspension represents another flash point in U.S.-Russia relations and another repudiation by Trump of international agreements, from the nuclear deal with Iran to the international climate-change accord. Friday's action had been all but guaranteed after Trump set a 60-day deadline two months ago for Russia to destroy all of its ground-launched cruise missiles, known as 9M729s.
"The United States has fully adhered to the INF Treaty for more than 30 years, but we will not remain constrained by its terms while Russia misrepresents its actions," Trump said in a statement. "We cannot be the only country in the world unilaterally bound by this treaty, or any other."
Speaking Saturday in a televised meeting with his foreign and defense ministers, Putin instructed the military to work on developing new land-based weapons that were previously forbidden by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Shoigu reported to Putin that the weapons would include a land-based version of the Kalibr ship-based cruise missile and a new hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile.
The Russian leader said Moscow remains open to talks with Washington, but he added it would be up to the U.S. to take the first step.
"Let's wait until our partners are mature enough to conduct an equal and substantive dialogue on those issues," he said.
At the same time, Putin told his ministers that he would like to review the progress on building other prospective weapons that don't fall under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, including the intercontinental Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle and the Poseidon underwater nuclear-powered drone.
He noted Shoigu's report that a key stage in testing of the Poseidon was completed several days ago. The drone is designed to carry a heavy nuclear weapon that could cause a devastating tsunami.
Putin also noted during Saturday's meeting that he would like the military to prepare a response to the possible deployment of weapons in space.
The Pentagon's new strategy unveiled last month calls for an array of space-based sensors and other high-tech systems to more quickly detect and shoot down incoming missiles.
Putin also instructed the military to make sure the research and development work on new weapons doesn't swell military spending. He said the military must reconfigure the existing defense budget to find money for the new weapons.
"We must not and will not be drawn into a costly arms race," he said.
CHINA WEIGHS IN
China called Saturday for Washington to negotiate with Russia instead of pulling out of the treaty the Trump administration sees as a restraint on its ability to compete with Beijing and Moscow.
"China is opposed to the U.S. withdrawal and urges the U.S. and Russia to properly resolve differences through constructive dialogue," China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty plays a "significant role" in "safeguarding global strategic balance," the ministry said.
The government said, however, that it opposed possible efforts to create a new agreement to extend to other countries.
"China opposes the multilateralization of this treaty," the statement said. "What is imperative at the moment is to uphold and implement the existing treaty instead of creating a new one."
Beijing has the fourth-largest nuclear arsenal with about 280 warheads, compared with 6,450 for the United States and 6,850 for Russia, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Beijing has been spending heavily to develop longer-range ballistic and cruise missiles.
COLD WAR ECHO
The collapse of the treaty has raised fears of a repeat of a Cold War showdown in the 1980s, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union both deployed intermediate-range missiles in Europe. Such weapons were seen as particularly destabilizing as they take only a few minutes to reach their targets, leaving no time for decision-makers and raising the likelihood of a global nuclear conflict over a false launch warning.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a tweet after the U.S. announcement that NATO fully supports the U.S. action. "Russia is in material breach of the #INFTreaty & must use next 6 months to return to full & verifiable compliance or bear sole responsibility for its demise," he said.
But comments from some European nations suggest allies aren't fully in agreement with the decision.
"Without the INF treaty, there will be less security," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters on Friday in Bucharest. "But we have to take note that the INF treaty is being violated by the Russian side."
Trump indicated in October that he wanted to pull out of the treaty, but after consulting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other allies, decided to delay the suspension. Pompeo said in early December that the U.S. was giving Russia two more months to get back in compliance with the treaty.
"My strongest criticism is that the U.S. and NATO have absolutely no Plan B," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington. "The reality is that pulling out of the INF treaty in protest of Russia's violation isn't going to prevent Russia from deploying more of these missiles."
The U.S. has no immediate plans to deploy new missiles to Europe when the withdrawal takes effect in August, according to two administration officials involved in the deliberations who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. It would take considerable time to test, purchase and deploy such missiles, and the administration currently is considering only non-nuclear, conventional options, the officials said.
Information for this article was contributed by Irina Reznik, Nick Wadhams, Margaret Talev, Jonathan Stearns, Stepan Kravchenko, Andra Timu and Ilya Arkhipov of Bloomberg News; by Vladimir Isachenkov, Deb Riechmann, Robert Burns, Matthew Lee, Lynn Berry and staff members of The Associated Press; and by Anton Troianovski of The Washington Post.
A Section on 02/03/2019