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The United States has been criticized by Russia and China over the testing of a missile banned for over 3 decades until the recent collapse of a Cold War-era treaty. Both countries have called it an attempt to draw them into an expensive and dangerous rush for new weapons. The Pentagon announced Monday it tested a cruise missile in California that would have been restricted under the agreement it has accused Russia of violating, 2 weeks after leaving the INF 1987 (Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces) Treaty banning land-based weapons ranging from 310 to 3,420 miles. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov cited President Vladimir Putin as saying Tuesday, “Such tests only proved that from the very start, the Americans were determined to derail the INF Treaty and were making preparations for it. We do not give in to provocations”.

Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in France, “We reiterate our commitment to a unilateral moratorium on deploying land-based intermediate-range systems until the U.S deploys such systems in some part of the world”. Peskov pointed out that several weeks and even months are not enough to make preparations for such a test. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and Moscow’s embassy in the United Kingdom tweeted, “Russia will not be pulled into a new arms race”.

The United States has for years blamed Russia of violating the INF through the development of the Novator 9M729 cruise missile. Moreover, Moscow has charged Washington with breaking the treaty by deploying defense systems that use platforms resembling Mark-41 Vertical Launch Systems (Mk-41 VLS). It has the capability of firing offensive missiles such as the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile. It is noteworthy that both sides have denied the claims against them.

A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed that the weapon tested was indeed a Tomahawk variant fired out of an Mk-41 launcher. Ryabkov informed the state-run Tass Russian News Agency, “The test of an advanced Tomahawk-type missile was conducted just 16 days after the U.S withdrew from INF, and the treaty was terminated. Perhaps, there can be no clearer and more explicit confirmation of the fact that the United States has been developing such systems for a long time, and preparations for quitting the agreement included, in particular, the relevant research and development”.