US President Donald Trump accused Moscow on Friday of violating the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with “impunity” by deploying banned missiles. Trump said Washington would “move forward” with developing its own military response options to Russia’s deployment of banned cruise missiles that could target Western Europe. The collapse of the INF Treaty has raised fears of a repeat of a Cold War showdown in the 1980s, when the US and the Soviet Union both deployed intermediate-range missiles on the continent. Putin instructed the military to make sure the research and development works on new weapons don’t swell the military budget. “Russia will not station intermediate-range weapons in Europe or other regions until similar US weapons appear in those regions,” he said.

Source: Bangkok Post February 02, 2019 11:37 UTC