Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement Monday denying that they had in any way violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, adding that they remain open to diplomacy to try to resolve disputes with the US on the matter. They conceded this was unlikely to happen, as they doubt the US is interested in talking, having already disavowed the treaty.
But while keeping open the diplomatic track, Russian officials say that military planners are expecting the US to use their withdrawal from the treaty as an opportunity to position nuclear weapons back into Europe. They are also planning a Russian response to try to counter this.
The two sides have been gearing up for tit-for-tat escalations for awhile, and these likely are based around the same plans made with respect to US missile defense deployments into Europe, and Russia’s objection to those.
The US has been accusing Russia of violating the INF for years based on missile tests they conducted. Russia has insisted that the tests were in line with the treaty’s limits, but the US kept repeating the allegations before finally abandoning the treaty.
As always, the USA is not in danger-it is the European “partners” which will face Russian retaliation if the US places nukes in Europe as it has done before. As it has never had to face actual war from outside the “homeland”, the USA could not care less about destroying anyone else, even “allies”.