Russia to 'restore' military balance if US quits nuclear arms pact

Russia said on Monday it would be forced to respond in kind to restore the military balance with the US if President Donald Trump carried through on a threat to quit a landmark nuclear arms treaty and began developing new missiles.
 

But Russia also signalled it may be willing to give some ground, with a senior Kremlin official telling Trump’s national security advisor that Russia was ready to address US concerns about how the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was being implemented.
 

Trump drew a warning of “military-technical” retaliation from Moscow after saying on Saturday that Washington would withdraw from the Cold War-era pact which rid Europe of land-based nuclear missiles.

Signed by then-President Ronald Reagan and reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 at a time of unprecedented East-West detente, the INF Treaty required the elimination of all short-range and intermediate-range land-based nuclear and conventional missiles held by both countries in Europe. Its demise could raise the prospect of a renewed arms race, and Gorbachev, now 87-year-old, has warned that unravelling it could be catastrophic.
 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday called Trump’s withdrawal plan a matter of deep concern for Moscow. “Such measures can make the world more dangerous,” he said during a daily conference call with reporters.
 

Despite repeated Russian denials, US authorities believe Moscow is developing and has deployed a ground-launched system in breach of the treaty that could allow it to launch a nuclear strike on Europe at short notice. 

Trump said the US would develop equivalent weapons unless Russia and China agreed to a halt in development.
 

Trump’s NSA in Moscow

Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, on a visit to Moscow, had talks with Nikolai Patrushev, the Secretary of Russia's Security Council. In a statement issued afterwards via Russia’s TASS news agency, the Security Council said Patrushev had emphasised Russia’s view that the INF Treaty should be retained, and tearing it up would undermine international 

arms control.