Putin warns US about placement of missiles

Associated Press

MOSCOW

Russian President Vladimir Putin sternly warned the United States against deploying new missiles in Europe, saying Wednesday that Russia will retaliate by fielding new weapons that will take just as little time to reach their targets.

Though the Russian leader didn’t say what specific new weapons Moscow could deploy, his statement further raised the ante in tense relations with Washington.

Speaking in his state-of-the-nation address, Putin charged that the U.S. has abandoned a key arms control pact to free up its hands to build new missiles and tried to shift the blame for the move to Russia.

“Our American partners should have honestly said it instead of making unfounded accusations against Russia to justify their withdrawal from the treaty,” Putin said.

The U.S. has accused Russia of breaching the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty by deploying a cruise missile that violates its limits – the accusations Moscow has rejected.

The INF treaty banned production, testing and deployment of land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 310 to 3,410 miles.

The intermediate-range weapons were seen as particularly destabilizing as they take shorter time to reach their targets compared with intercontinental ballistic missiles.