Russia says it may deploy intermediate nuclear missiles in Europe

[left-of-center2012]

Russia said on Monday it may be forced to deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe in response to what it sees as NATO's plans to do the same. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russia's RIA news agency in an interview that Moscow would have to take the step if NATO refused to engage with it on preventing such an escalation.

Intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in Europe were banned under a 1987 treaty agreed between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan in what was hailed at the time as a major easing of Cold War tensions.
Trump quit the pact in 2019 after complaining of ‘alleged Russian violations’.

Ryabkov said there were "indirect indications" that NATO was moving closer to re-deploying INF, including its restoration last month of the 56th Artillery Command which operated nuclear-capable Pershing missiles during the Cold War.

NATO says there will be no new U.S. missiles in Europe and it is ready to deter new Russian missiles with a "measured" response that would only involve conventional weapons.

But Ryabkov said Russia had a "complete lack of trust" in NATO.

https://news.trust.org/item/20211213124545-vaaq1

[Walleye]

1. I guess Putin needs a distraction from his piss poor Covid response

[elleng]

2. Right, via WW III.

[Walleye]

3. All part of the death cult

[dutch777]

4. A bit of a fuzzy standard. Most, if not all, intermediate weapons are highly mobile.

Having served in Germany in US miliary intelligence in the Cold War, I always found these agreements as false hope. The Russians were aces at camoflage and subterfuge. And it is very easy to modify a train car with a removable or openable roof underneath which you have a concealed mobile missile launcher. If you load the cars in a warehouse out of the satellites' prying eyes, and you don't talk about moving missiles on the radio where the message can be readily intercepted, and you roll those trains to a surveyed position where you have range to an EU target, the treaty means nothing. If you do this from say 5 or 6 dispersed locations, chances are intelligence may notice something on half of them. And with nukes, half getting through is usually more than enough.

[keithbvadu2]

5. "Russia is our friend" - new republican meme of Trump's regime.

"Russia is our friend" - new republican meme of Trump's regime.

Used to be: “Better dead than red”

"... retired Marine Corps Gen. James N. Mattis said in May 2015 that among world threats “in the near term, I think the most dangerous might be Russia.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/6/donald-trump-james-mattis-differ-on-vladimir-putin/

As his master Vlad approaches:

[crickets]

6. Wait, tfg backed us out of a *Reagan* nuclear treaty with Soviet Russia,

and none of the GOP squawked on St. Ronnie's behalf? I vaguely remember this happening among the barrage of broken treaties left in the orange one's wake, but I don't recall a big fuss over it. Was there any pushback at all?