‘No longer bound’: Russia abandons nuclear treaty with US amid Trump’s submarine move
Russia has said that it would no longer abide by a nuclear arms treaty and renew the deployment of short and intermediate range nuclear missiles amid tensions with the United States, as President Donald Trump earlier ordered two nuclear submarines to “be positioned in the appropriate regions“.
Russia’s former President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday accused NATO countries for the abandonment of the moratorium on the nuclear treaty and said that the Kremlin would take further steps in response. Moscow said it no longer considers itself bound by its self-imposed freeze on the deployment of the missiles.
Russia has said that it would no longer abide by a nuclear arms treaty and renew the deployment of short and intermediate range nuclear missiles amid tensions with the United States, as President Donald Trump earlier ordered two nuclear submarines to “be positioned in the appropriate regions“.
Russia’s former President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday accused NATO countries for the abandonment of the moratorium on the nuclear treaty and said that the Kremlin would take further steps in response. Moscow said it no longer considers itself bound by its self-imposed freeze on the deployment of the missiles.
In a post on X, Medvedev, who is Russia’s Deputy Chair of the Security Council said “This is a new reality all our opponents will have to reckon with. Expect further steps.” The development comes after the US president earlier said he was repositioning two US nuclear submarines in response to nuclear threats from Medvedev.
Trump said he acted “just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that. Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances”.
The Nuclear Treaty
The nuclear treaty, also known as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF), was signed between the United States and the then USSR during the Cold War era. The treaty was signed in 1987 by US President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader.
The treaty led to the elimination of an entire class of weapons, ground-launched missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometres. More than 2,600 Soviet and US missiles were eliminated as part of the treaty, New York Times reported. However, President Trump withdrew from the Cold War era treaty accusing Russia of several violations.
Moscow, at the time in 2019, had said it would not deploy missiles as long as Washington did not do so.
