Washington (AFP)

Less than a month after the death of the INF disarmament treaty, the missile race has already resumed: the United States announced Monday to have successfully completed their first intermediate-range ground-to-air missile test since the Cold War.

The test, successful, was made Sunday from the island of San Nicolas, off California, at 14:30 local time (21:30 GMT), said the Pentagon in a statement.

"The missile tested has left its ground launch pad and accurately hit its target after more than 500 km of flight," said the US Department of Defense in a statement.

"The data collected and the lessons learned from this test will give the Ministry of Defense the necessary information for the development of new medium-range weapons," the Pentagon concludes in this brief statement.

The missile tested is "a variant of the Tomahawk attack cruise missile," said a Pentagon official.

Images published by the US military show the missile fired near the shore, from a Mark 41 vertical launch system.

The United States has a long history of deploying mid-range cruise missiles, and they are usually fired from Mark 41 systems. What is new with this test is that the launch system was installed on the ground.

According to the military official, who requested anonymity, the launcher is of a different type from the one that equips the AEGIS antimissile system deployed in Romania and being deployed in Poland, which Russia has for years accused of violating the treaty. INF.

The missile tested Sunday is conventional, but any missile can, thereafter, be equipped with nuclear warhead.

- Research launched in 2017 -

The United States left the INF disarmament treaty on August 2, which abolished the testing and use of a whole series of missiles ranging in scope from 500 to 5,500 km.

On the same day, Defense Minister Mark Esper announced that the United States would now accelerate the development of new ground-to-air missiles, in response to Russian missile 9M729, which according to Westerners violates the INF Treaty, which Moscow denies, insisting that his new missile has a maximum range of "480 km".

"Now that we have withdrawn, the Ministry of Defense will fully pursue the development of these conventional surface-to-air missiles in a cautious response to Russia's actions," said Esper.

He said the Americans had begun researching missile systems in 2017, while remaining within the scope of the INF Treaty on Intermediate Nuclear Forces.

But for the Russian deputy Yuri Shvytkin, vice-chairman of the Duma Defense Committee, the lower house of the Russian parliament, "the tests of this missile once again confirm that the US violated the INF agreement."

"They were preparing in advance to come out unilaterally," the Russian news agency Ria-Novosti told the parliamentarian of Russia's lower house.

The INF Treaty had allowed in the 1980s the elimination of Russian missiles SS20 and US Pershing, at the heart of the euromissile crisis.

Visiting France, Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the issue at a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron, making Washington responsible for the death of the treaty.

"It is not Russia that unilaterally withdrew from the treaty," he said. "Now there is the question of renewing the START III treaty, for now we do not see any initiative from our American partners even though our proposals are already on the table".

The final part of the START treaty, which keeps the nuclear arsenals of both countries well below the level of the Cold War, expires in 2021.

Putin assured that Moscow would not deploy medium-range and smaller nuclear weapons "until US systems are deployed."

© 2019 AFP