“Russia has all the means”: which missiles of shorter and medium range can appear in the RF Armed Forces

Speaking at the Council of CIS Heads of State in Ashgabat, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Russia will create its own medium- and shorter-range missiles, as the United States already has them.

“I sent an appropriate appeal to the heads of state of many countries of the world, we announced that we are not going to deploy medium-range missiles, if we have them, - and we, of course, will now work on this, because they have appeared among the Americans - we are not going to place them in those regions of the world where the corresponding complexes of American production will not appear, ”Putin said.

Recall, on September 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed a number of countries, including NATO members, with a message containing a proposal to introduce a moratorium on the deployment of medium- and shorter-range missiles in Europe and other regions. Speaking at the Council of CIS Heads of State, the Russian leader noted that Moscow has not yet received an answer to this proposal: “No matter how strange it seems, silence”.

“I think that the US does not intentionally respond, and the US allies cannot answer without them, because in this sense and in this part their sovereignty is very limited, they simply do not have their own word, their own opinion on this issue,” he added Putin

At the same time, the President noted that Washington could not clarify the situation with the Strategic Arms Reduction and Limitation Treaty (START III), which expires in 2021. According to Vladimir Putin, this provokes an arms race.

Collapse of the contract

Recall, the Treaty on the Elimination of Medium and Shorter Range Missiles (INF Treaty), concluded on December 8, 1987 between the USSR and the USA, forbade the production, testing and deployment of ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles with a flight range of 500 to 5.5 thousand km. All missiles, launchers, simulators and testing equipment that are in service (and in storage) were subject to complete destruction.

By 1991, the Soviet Union disposed of the Pioneer, Temp-S, ballistic missiles R-12 and R-14. Also, Moscow as a gesture of goodwill got rid of OTRK Oka, which formally did not fall within the scope of the agreement. In turn, the Pentagon got rid of Pershing systems and ground versions of the Tomahawk cruise missile.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin
• RIA News
• © Alexey Druzhinin

However, in recent years, Washington began to regularly accuse Moscow of violating the INF Treaty, not supporting its claims with any evidence. As a result, on August 2, 2019, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the treaty.

On August 23, during a meeting with members of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin made a statement that the United States originally intended to break the agreement and organized a “propaganda campaign” in order to avoid responsibility for unilateral withdrawal from it.

"Instead of correcting this unacceptable situation and returning to compliance with the treaty, the Americans organized a propaganda campaign about allegedly non-compliance by Russia with the provisions of this treaty," Putin said.

He recalled that shortly after the denunciation of the agreement, the United States tested the ground-based cruise missile, which, according to the US military, hit the target at a distance of over 500 km. Vladimir Putin in his statement emphasized that this test was not improvisation, but became the next link in a chain of events that were planned and carried out earlier.

However, after leaving the INF Treaty at the initiative of the United States, Washington and its allies are trying to shift the responsibility for the collapse of the treaty to Russia.

“Just a few days ago, Russia's neglect of rules and regulations led to the death of one of the main pillars of the arms control regime after the end of the Cold War, the INF Treaty,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on August 7, speaking at a research institute in Sydney, Australia.

Mid-range and shorter-range missiles pose a serious threat, since their approach speed is higher than that of intercontinental ballistic missiles, a military political scientist, head of the Department of Political Science and Sociology of the Russian University of Economics named after RT. Plekhanova Andrey Koshkin.

“The United States can deploy such missiles in the most dangerous areas for Russia: Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Far East. Earlier, the United States had a Dropshot plan, which implied that atomic bombs should be dropped on Soviet cities. But many years have passed since then, the capabilities of missiles have changed, and the number of nuclear states is growing, ”said the expert.

New candidates

The formal pretext for the United States to withdraw from the INF Treaty was a claim to the Russian 9M729 cruise missile for the Iskander-M tactical complex, which allegedly violated the provisions of the agreement. The Russian Defense Ministry demonstrated to the foreign military and journalists this cruise missile at a special briefing, however, representatives of the United States and other NATO countries refused to attend.

According to Andrea Kalan, spokesman for the US embassy in Moscow, Russia will not be able to convince Americans and their allies that the 9M729 missile does not violate the provisions of the INF Treaty.

“Since the demonstration of the rocket was carried out by Russia, its representatives distorted information about its technical characteristics in order to give credibility to its history,” Kalan said in an interview with RBC.

At the same time, the United States itself deployed Mk-41 missiles in Eastern Europe, allegedly as part of an expansion of the missile defense system, as Vladimir Putin mentioned in his statement to the Security Council.

• Missile system "Iskander-M"
• RIA News
• © Ramil Sitdikov

Recall that in February 2019, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu during a conference call in the military department said that in response to the US decision to suspend participation in the INF Treaty, Russia will develop a ground-based version of the Caliber complex with a long-range cruise missile in 2019-2020 , as well as a ground-based complex with a long-range hypersonic missile.

In addition, according to Andrei Koshkin, new missiles can be created on the basis of Caliber and other sea-based systems.

“In connection with the US unilaterally withdrawing from the INF Treaty, Moscow has the right to land the Caliber missile in the same way that a sea-based Tomahawk was launched from the Mk-41. I think that sea missiles will become the basis for the deployment of this class of missiles in the USA and Russia, ”Koshkin suggested.

When Russia has such missiles, they will be used to suppress enemy control units and launch positions, the expert added.

“The Russian Federation has and will have all the necessary means to strike at the enemy decision-making centers,” Koshkin emphasized.

In turn, the military expert Yury Knutov in conversation with RT focused on the fact that Russia has Caliber, Iskander, Zircon and Bastion missiles - all of which can be modified to create an arsenal of medium and medium shorter range. In addition, it is possible to restore the development carried out in the USSR before the signing of the INF Treaty, the expert added.

“The Russian Federation has the potential to compensate for the problems that may arise in connection with the deployment of medium- and shorter-range missiles in European countries. Today, Washington is forcing Moscow to follow the path of expanding such a range of missiles. However, Russia can solve the problems associated with maintaining parity if the United States takes such a step, ”Knutov said.

He recalled that Russian missile defense systems have gone far ahead in their characteristics from foreign counterparts, and can provide protection, including against weapons like RSMD.

“The Soviet Union during the years of the Cold War did not have the means of effective air defense that could protect the territory from the impact of medium and shorter range missiles. Today, Russia has a lot of efficient complexes that operate in automatic mode, so the threat from deploying INFs is not so high, ”the expert concluded.