We use your sign-up to provide content in ways that you consented to and improve our understanding of you. It may include ads from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. If NATO was to do the same, Moscow would have to make the move, according to Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's deputy foreign minister. The missiles could hit many countries in Europe.
Ryabkov told Russia's RIA news agency that the West would force Russia's hand if it did not join a moratorium on intermediate-range nuclear forces in Europe - part of a range of concessions it is trying to defuse tensions on the Ukrainian border.
He said that it will be a confrontation, this will be the next round. Intermediate-range nuclear weapons have a range of 500 to 5,500 km 310 to 3,400 miles They were banned in Europe under a pact between then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan in 1987, in an easing of Cold War tensions.
Nearly 2,700 of them were destroyed by the two sides in 1991.
The US withdrew from the treaty in 2019 due to alleged violations by Russia about the development of ground-launched cruise missiles referred to as the Screwdriver, referred to by NATO as the Screwdriver.