Why Is Russia Threatening To Deploy Missiles Like China?

Although US and its allies are warning Moscow against this move, these comments have (obviously) increased tension as West can see Russia continues to prepare for a Ukrainian invasion. Russia has now openly threatened to deploy Intermediate nuclear missiles.

In a treaty signed in 1987 between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the use of Intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in Europe were banned. However, later, in the year 2019, Washington quit the pact after complaining that Russia had violated the treaty. 

During his new interview, Ryabkov commented on the topic, saying there were “indirect indications”, that NATO was moving closer to redeploying INF, including its restoration last month of the 56th Artillery Command which operated nuclear-capable Pershing missiles during the Cold War.

He also said that, “Lack of progress towards a political and diplomatic solution to this problem will lead to our response being of a military and technical military nature.” “That is, it will be a confrontation, this will the next round, the appearance of such resources on our side. Right now, there aren’t any, we have a unilateral moratorium. We call for NATO and the U.S. to join this moratorium.” 

NATO has however confirmed that no new US missiles were deployed in Europe. They are also ready to deter new Russian missiles with a “measured” response that would only involve conventional weapons. Commenting on this Ryabkov says that Russia had a “complete lack of trust” in NATO. Further he added, “They don’t permit themselves to do anything that could somehow increase our security – they believe they can act as they need, to their advantage, and we simply have to swallow all this and deal with it. This is not going to continue.” 

Last week in a two-hour meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden, they discussed the Ukraine crisis and Moscow’s demand for what it calls legally binding security guarantees from the West.