Russia has expressed its intention to abandon development of a ground-based version of the missile "Caliber" for withdrawal of American concerns in exchange for the return of the U.S. to implement the Treaty on intermediate and shorter-range missiles, which eventually was destroyed by the fault of Washington, said in a commentary the Russian foreign Ministry in connection with the report of the US state Department about countries ‘ compliance with agreements in the field of arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament.
"we will Note one more remarkable moment, for the first time included in the report of the state Department. So, outright distortion and deliberate misrepresentation of the international community is sending to announced in February 2019 decision of the President of Russia on carrying out R & d on the development of a land version of cruise missiles, sea-based medium-range from the composition of the naval complex "Calibre". The authors of the report acknowledged that this step was not a violation of the INF Treaty, however hypocritical it is alleged that he supposedly testified about the absence of Russia’s intentions to return to compliance with the Treaty", – said the Russian Ministry.
The foreign Ministry stressed that "such perverse logic is another distortion of reality" from the point of view of the overall context and sequence of events. In particular, the Ministry said, the United States is already the end of 2017 began to establish prohibited under the INF Treaty arms.
"Thus, by February, 2019, when the decision of the President of Russia to take retaliatory steps (in particular, the system "Calibre"), the United States for many years engaged in the preparations for the establishment prohibited by the INF Treaty arms and development of appropriate technologies, highlighted the funding and started R & d on new systems. It was also already announced the suspension of the execution of the Contract and the intention of the US to get out of it. Not reflected in the report of the state Department and expressed Russia’s intention to abandon the development of the terrestrial version of "Caliber" and other weapons that do not meet the requirements of the INF Treaty, in the case of U.S. willingness to return to the field of the Contract and to restart the dialogue on the settlement of competing claims", – said the Minister.
The destruction of the Treaty on the elimination of intermediate-range and shorter-range nuclear forces (INF), one of the pillars of the global system of strategic stability, occurred after the U.S. decision in August 2019 to get out of it, ostensibly because of violations on the part of Russia. Washington has accused Moscow of developing and testing prohibited missiles 9М729 (SSC-8 according to NATO classification). In Moscow claim that the missile has allowed a range of less than 500 kilometers. China was not a party to the INF Treaty. This fact the United States also explained his nameening to leave the agreement.
