Tag Archives: INF treaty

NATO weighs options to deter new Russian missile threat

Banners displaying the NATO logo are placed at the entrance of new NATO headquarters during the move to the new building, in Brussels, Belgium April 19, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman

By Robin Emmott and Phil Stewart

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO defense ministers considered on Wednesday how to deter Russia from launching a missile attack at short notice on Europe if a landmark treaty against land-based nuclear warheads collapses next month.

Barring a last-minute reversal by Russia that NATO does not expect, the United States is set to pull out of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) on Aug. 2 citing Russia’s development of a missile that breaks the accord.

Moscow says it is fully compliant with the INF treaty negotiated by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which eliminated the medium-range missile arsenals of the world’s two biggest nuclear powers.

“Ministers have agreed that NATO will respond should Russia fail to return to compliance,” Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters after the meeting in Brussels.

“They will have to bear the full responsibility for the demise of the treaty,” although he said NATO would not place nuclear-capable, land-based medium-range missiles in Europe, as happened in the 1980s.

U.S. and British intelligence shows Russia has conducted tests of the SSC-8 ground-launched cruise missile that violate the treaty ban on land-based missiles with a range of 500 km to 5,500km (300-3,400 miles), NATO diplomats say.

NATO says the missiles are hard to detect and have a shorter warning time than long-range rockets, raising the chances of nuclear weapons being used in conflict.

The missile dispute marks a further worsening of East-West ties that have deteriorated since Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea and has prompted fears of an arms race between Russia, the United States and China, which is also developing missiles.

Stoltenberg said defense ministers looked at options including more exercises, using conventional weapons and improving intelligence and surveillance, as well as air defense.

Diplomats told Reuters that flights of F16 warplanes and B52 bombers capable of carrying nuclear warheads and re-positioning sea-based missile systems were also under consideration.

Such steps are meant to underline NATO’s determination to protect Europe and raise the economic and military costs for Russia of any possible missile attack.

Luxembourg’s Defence Minister François Bausch said that while diplomats would continue to urge Moscow to destroy the SSC-8 missile, NATO also needed “a military answer” because the security of Europe was at stake.

FINAL DIPLOMATIC PUSH

NATO envoys are expected to meet Russian officials in the NATO-Russia Council forum next week to make a last-ditch attempt to save the INF treaty before the August deadline.

Kathryn Wheelbarger, an acting U.S. assistant secretary of defense, said that while there was still time for Russia to change course, “we don’t assess that they will.”

Before the meeting got underway, Stoltenberg declined to rule out that NATO could reconfigure its ballistic missile defense shield in southeastern Europe to counter Russian rockets.

After billions of dollars of U.S. investment, the NATO-controlled radar and its launchers are trained on Iran, officials say, and the alliance has repeatedly said they are not designed to target Russia, as Moscow has stated.

The United States says it will also focus on developing conventional missiles that serve as a deterrent to both Russia and China, which is not a signatory to the INF treaty and has stated its intention to push into new technologies including new cruise missiles.

“We need to build long-range precision (missiles),” Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters on Tuesday en route to Brussels. “Relief from the INF treaty will allow us to do that in a non-nuclear way, in a conventional way. And it also frees us up to deal with not just Russia but China.”

European allies are worried about being caught up in nuclear competition between Moscow and Washington.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott and Phil Stewart; Additional reporting by Sabine Siebold; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Putin to U.S.: I’m ready for another Cuban Missile crisis if you want one

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the Federal Assembly, including the State Duma parliamentarians, members of the Federation Council, regional governors and other high-ranking officials, in Moscow, Russia February 20, 2019. Sputnik/Alexei Nikolsky/Kremlin via REUTERS

By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia is militarily ready for a Cuban Missile-style crisis if the United States is foolish enough to want one and that his country currently has the edge when it comes to a first nuclear strike.

The Cuban Missile Crisis erupted in 1962 when Moscow responded to a U.S. missile deployment in Turkey by sending ballistic missiles to Cuba, sparking a standoff that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

More than five decades on, tensions are rising again over Russian fears that the United States might deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe as a landmark Cold war-era arms control treaty unravels.

Putin’s comments, made to Russian media late on Wednesday, follow his warning that Moscow will match any U.S. move to deploy new missiles closer to Russia by stationing its own missiles closer to the United States or by deploying faster missiles or both.

Putin fleshed out his warning in detail for the first time, saying Russia could deploy hypersonic missiles on ships and submarines which could lurk outside U.S. territorial waters if Washington now moved to deploy intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe.

“(We’re talking about) naval delivery vehicles: submarines or surface ships. And we can put them, given the speed and range (of our missiles)… in neutral waters. Plus they are not stationary, they move and they will have to find them,” Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript.

“You work it out. Mach nine (the speed of the missiles) and over 1,000 km (their range).”

TREATY VIOLATIONS

The U.S. State Department dismissed Putin’s earlier warning as propaganda, saying it was designed to divert attention from what Washington alleges are Moscow’s violations of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

The pact, which banned Russia and the United States from stationing short- and intermediate-range, land-based missiles in Europe, is in its death throes, raising the prospect of a new arms race between Washington and Moscow.

Putin has said he does not want an arms race with the United States, but that he would have no choice but to act if Washington deployed new missiles in Europe, some of which he says would be able to strike Moscow within 10-12 minutes.

Putin said his naval response to such a move would mean Russia could strike the United States faster than U.S. missiles deployed in Europe could hit Moscow because the flight time would be shorter.

“It (the calculation) would not be in their favor, at least as things stand today. That’s for sure.” said Putin.

Relations between Moscow and Washington were strained, he added, but the tensions were not comparable to those of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

“They (the tensions) are not a reason to ratchet up confrontation to the levels of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 1960s. In any case that’s not what we want,” said Putin. “If someone wants that, well OK they are welcome. I have set out today what that would mean. Let them count (the missile flight times).”

(Editing by Gareth Jones)

U.S. suspends compliance on weapons treaty with Russia, may withdraw in six months

FILE PHOTO: Components of SSC-8/9M729 cruise missile system are on display during a news briefing, organized by Russian defence and foreign ministries, at Patriot Expocentre near Moscow, Russia January 23, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo

By Lesley Wroughton and Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will suspend compliance with the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia on Saturday and formally withdraw in six months if Moscow does not end its alleged violation of the pact, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday.

The United States would reconsider its withdrawal if Russia, which denies violating the landmark 1987 arms control pact, came into compliance with the treaty, which bans either side from stationing short- and intermediate-range, land-based missiles in Europe.

“Russia has refused to take any steps to return (to) real and verifiable compliance,” Pompeo told reporters at the State Department. “We will provide Russia and the other treaty parties with formal notice that the United States is withdrawing from the INF treaty, effective in six months.

“If Russia does not return to full and verifiable compliance with the treaty within this six-month period by verifiably destroying its INF-violating missiles, their launchers, and associated equipment, the treaty will terminate.”

The United States alleges a new Russian cruise missile violates the pact. The missile, the Novator 9M729, is known as the SSC-8 by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Russia says the missile’s range puts it outside the treaty, and has accused the United States of inventing a false pretext to exit a treaty that it wants to leave anyway so it can develop new missiles. Russia also has rejected a U.S. demand to destroy the new missile.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday the United States had been unwilling to discuss the issue.

A few hours before Pompeo’s announcement a statement from NATO said the alliance would “fully support” the U.S. withdrawal notice.

Some experts believe the collapse of the INF treaty could undermine other arms control agreements and speed an erosion of the global system designed to block the spread of nuclear arms.

European officials are especially worried about the treaty’s possible collapse, fearful that Europe could again become an arena for nuclear-armed, intermediate-range missile buildups by the United States and Russia.

Speaking before Pompeo’s announcement, German Chancellor Angela Merkel emphasized the importance of using the six-month window to keep talking.

“It is clear to us that Russia has violated this treaty …,” she said. “The important thing is to keep the window for dialogue open.”

Senator Bob Menendez, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, accused Trump failing to grasp the importance of arms control treaties or of having a wider strategy to control the spread of nuclear weapons.

“Today’s withdrawal is yet another geo-strategic gift to (Russian President) Vladimir Putin,” he said in a statement.

(Reporting By Makini Brice, Susan Heavey, Arshad Mohammed and Lesley Wroughton; Writing by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Bill Trott)

U.S. has offered to hold arms control talks with Russia -official

FILE PHOTO: National flags of Russia and the U.S. fly at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has offered to hold talks on arm control issues with Russia on the sidelines of a United Nations meeting in Beijing next week, a senior State Department official said on Thursday.

Under Secretary of State Andrea Thompson told reporters the talks almost certainly would include a dispute over a Cold War-era treaty limiting intermediate-range missiles.

Washington has pledged to withdraw from the pact because of what it charges is the deployment by Moscow of a new cruise missile that violates the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty).

Moscow has denied that the missile in question, the Novator 9M729 (called the SSC-8 by NATO), violates the agreement, which bars either side from stationing short- and intermediate-range, land-based missiles in Europe.

Moscow says the missile’s range keeps it outside of the treaty and has accused the United States of inventing a false pretext to leave an accord it wants to exit anyway to develop its own new missiles.

Thompson said the United States has presented Russia with a proposal for a “verifiable” test of the missile’s range but Moscow has not embraced the plan.

Unless the Russians come back into compliance with the INF Treaty, the United States will make good on its decision to suspend its compliance with the pact at the end of a 60-day period on Feb. 2, Thompson said.

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Russia takes wraps off new missile to try to save U.S. nuclear pact

Participants attend a news briefing, organized by Russian defence and foreign ministries' officials and dedicated to SSC-8/9M729 cruise missile system, at Patriot Expocentre near Moscow, Russia January 23, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

By Tom Balmforth and Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia showed foreign military attaches on Wednesday a new cruise missile that the United States says breaches a landmark arms control pact, billing it as an exercise in transparency it hoped would persuade Washington to stay in the treaty.

Washington has threatened to pull out of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), alleging that the new Russian missile, the Novator 9M729 (called SSC-8 by NATO), violates the pact, which bans either side from stationing short and intermediate-range, land-based missiles in Europe.

Russia denies that. It says the missile’s range puts it outside the treaty and has accused the United States of inventing a false pretext to exit a treaty it wants to leave anyway so as to develop new missiles.

The Russian lobbying effort comes as the clock ticks down toward Feb. 2, the date when Washington has said it will begin the process of pulling out of the pact unless Russia verifiably destroys the new missile system altogether, something it has refused to do.

Russia displayed the new missile system at a military theme park outside Moscow to foreign military attaches and journalists. A senior defense ministry official explained the weapon’s characteristics in detail as a soldier highlighted different parts with a laser pointer.

The missile has a maximum range of 480 kilometers (298 miles), which meant it was fully compliant with the INF treaty, Lieutenant-General Mikhail Matveyevsky, head of Russia’s Missile Troops and Artillery, said.

The United States had previously rejected a Russian offer to look at the contested missile, in what is known as a ‘static display’, because it said such an exercise would not allow it to verify the true range of its warheads.

The Russian Defence Ministry said diplomats from the United States, Britain, France and Germany had been invited to attend the static display, but declined to attend.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told a news briefing before the display that the United States had made clear through diplomatic channels that its decision to exit the pact was final and that it was not open to dialogue.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova later said that Russia had suggested the two nations hold talks on the issue on the sidelines of a meeting of the P5 nuclear powers in Beijing later this month, but had not received “a concrete reply”.

She said Russia remained open to talks anyway. Western diplomats have played down the chances of the two countries resolving their differences at that meeting if it takes place.

(Additional reporting by Robin Emmott in Brussels; editing by Gareth Jones)

Russia pledges to act to ‘restore’ military balance if U.S. quits nuclear arms pact

National flags of Russia and the U.S. fly at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

By Andrew Osborn and Tom Balmforth

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Monday it would be forced to respond in kind to restore the military balance with the United States if President Donald Trump carried through on a threat to quit a landmark nuclear arms treaty and began developing new missiles.

Trump drew a warning of “military-technical” retaliation from Moscow after saying on Saturday that Washington would withdraw from the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which rid Europe of land-based nuclear missiles.

The INF treaty, signed by then-President Ronald Reagan and reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 at a time of unprecedented East-West detente, required the elimination of all short-range and intermediate-range land-based nuclear and conventional missiles held by both countries in Europe.

Its demise raises the possibility of a renewed arms race, and Gorbachev, now a frail 87-year-old, has warned that unraveling it could have catastrophic consequences.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday called Trump’s withdrawal plan a matter of deep concern for Moscow.

“Such measures can make the world more dangerous,” he said during a daily conference call with reporters.

Despite repeated Russian denials, U.S. authorities believe Moscow is developing and has deployed a ground-launched system in breach of the INF treaty that could allow it to launch a nuclear strike on Europe at short notice.

Trump said the United States would develop equivalent weapons unless Russia and China agreed to a halt in development. China is not a party to the treaty.

Peskov said President Vladimir Putin had repeatedly warned that the demise of the treaty would force Moscow to take specific military steps to protect its own security.

“Scrapping the provisions of the INF treaty forces Russia to take measures for its own security because what does scrapping the INF treaty mean?,” said Peskov.

“It means that the United States is not disguising, but is openly starting to develop these systems in the future, and if these systems are being developed, then actions are necessary from other countries, in this case Russia, to restore balance in this sphere.”

EUROPEAN ALARM

Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton is due to hold talks with senior officials in Moscow later on Monday and to meet Putin on Tuesday.

Peskov said Trump’s decision to quit the pact would be a subject for discussion and that Moscow was looking for a detailed explanation as to why Washington had decided to turn its back on the treaty.

The INF treaty required the United States and the Soviet Union to forego all nuclear ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 km, eliminating an entire category of weapon.

The Soviet Union scrapped hundreds of SS-20 ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads which had a range of 5,500 km as a result. Many of them had been pointed at Europe.

NATO’s decision to station Cruise and Pershing nuclear missiles in Europe provoked waves of protests in the 1980s from anti-nuclear campaigners who felt their deployment would turn Europe into a potential nuclear battlefield.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in Bonn, West Germany, and campaigners formed a protest camp at Greenham Common, in Britain, the site of Cruise missiles.

EUROPEAN ALARM

Trump’s statement has alarmed some European countries.

French President Emmanuel Macron spoke to Trump on Sunday to stress the importance of the treaty, his office said on Monday. The German government said it regretted Trump’s decision, saying NATO would now have to discuss the development.

China also condemned Trump’s move on Monday, saying it was wrong to unilaterally pull out of the treaty.

In Moscow, Peskov said there was a six-month period for Washington to withdraw from the INF treaty once it had given official notification it was leaving, something he noted it had not yet done.

That meant the question of Russia acting to restore the military balance between Washington and Moscow was not “for today or tomorrow,” he said.

Peskov denied U.S. accusations Russia had breached the treaty, alleging that the United States was the one at fault and had been steadily undermining it.

“Putin has said many times said the United States de facto is taking measures that are eroding the conditions of this treaty,” said Peskov, referring to strike drones and anti-missile systems capable of destroying short- and intermediate-range rockets.

(Additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow, Joseph Nasr in Berlin, Sudip Kar-Gupta, and by Michael Martina in Beijing; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

U.S. Defense Secretary says Russian violation of arms control treaty ‘untenable’

y Idrees Ali and Robin Emmott

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Thursday that Russia’s violation of an arms control treaty was “untenable” and unless it changed course the United States would respond.

The United States believes Russia is developing a ground-launched system in breach of a Cold War treaty, known as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), that could allow Moscow to launch a nuclear strike on Europe at short notice. Russia has consistently denied any such violation.

“Russia must return to compliance with the INF treaty or the U.S. will need to respond to its cavalier disregard to the treaty’s specific limits,” Mattis told a news conference after a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.

“The United States is reviewing options in our diplomacy and defense posture to do just that. Make no mistake: The current situation, with Russia in blatant violation of this treaty, is untenable,” Mattis said.

He declined to give details on the possible U.S. response.

The 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty bans medium-range missiles capable of hitting Europe or Alaska and ended a Cold War-era crisis, when the Soviet Union installed nearly 400 nuclear warheads pointed at western Europe.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Moscow had developed a missile known as Novator 9M729, which analysts say is similar to Russian short-range, sea-launched missiles but can fly between 500 km to 5,500 km (310-3,420 miles).

Mattis’ comments are likely to worsen relations between Moscow and the West, already at a post-Cold War low over Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea, its bombing campaign in Syria and accusations of meddling in Western elections.

While the United States has called for Russia to come back into compliance with the INF treaty for several years, Mattis’ comments come just days after Washington’s envoy to NATO said Russia must halt its covert development of the banned cruise missile system or the United States would seek to destroy it before it becomes operational.

U.S. ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison said on Tuesday Washington remained committed to a diplomatic solution but was prepared to “take out” any Russian missile if development of the medium-range system continued.

The Russian foreign ministry reacted by saying Hutchison’s comments were dangerous. Hutchison clarified that she was not talking about a preemptive strike against Russia.

U.S. STARTING MISSILE RESEARCH

The top U.S. general in Europe said the United States needed to make strong statements on Russia’s violation.

“We also will take the steps necessary to ensure that we don’t have any gaps in a credible defense and deterrence posture,” General Curtis Scaparrotti, head of U.S. European Command and NATO’s supreme allied commander, told reporters during the NATO meeting.

A recent U.S. State Department report found Russia had violated obligations “not to possess, produce, or flight-test” a ground-launched cruise missile with a range capability of 500 km to 5,500 km (310-3,420 miles), “or to possess or produce launchers of such missiles”.

Earlier this year, the U.S. military said in a new national defense strategy that countering Russia, along with China, would be a priority. The move reflects shifting U.S. priorities after more than a decade and a half of focusing on the fight against Islamist militants.

The Pentagon’s nuclear policy document released in February said that in response to Russia’s violation, the United States would start reviewing its own options for conventional, ground-launched, intermediate-range missile systems.

Kingston Reif, the director for disarmament research at the Arms Control Association advocacy group, cautioned that if the United States also abandoned the INF treaty, it would allow Russia to potentially station hundreds of missiles near Europe.

Any new U.S. missile system would also be politically difficult to station in Europe as no NATO ally would want to host it, he said. “Attempting to force it upon the alliance would be incredibly divisive. It is thus a weapon to nowhere.”

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Gareth Jones)