Russia says it could take additional nuclear deterrent measures if US installs missiles in Europe/Asia

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia could take additional steps in the field of nuclear deterrence if the United States deploys medium- and short-range missiles in Europe and Asia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the official news agency RIA in an interview.

RIA referred to US plans, announced in April, to deploy missiles in the Indo-Pacific region in response to what Washington sees as China’s increasing militarization.

Such deployments would previously have been prohibited under the landmark 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia, from which the United States formally withdrew in 2019 after declaring that Moscow was violating the agreement, a an accusation that the Kremlin has denied.

Moscow has long warned that it would abandon the moratorium it proposed after the expiration of the treaty on the deployment of short- and medium-range missiles if Washington continued its plan to deploy such missiles in Asia and Europe.

Lavrov told RIA that Russia may also have to take other measures.

“We do not exclude additional measures in the field of nuclear deterrence, because our command centers and the locations of our nuclear forces will be within the range of advanced American missiles,” Lavrov said.

(Reporting by Reuters; editing by Andrew Osborn)