Russia may take additional steps to bolster its nuclear deterrence if the United States deploys intermediate and short-range missiles in Europe and Asia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated in an interview with state news agency RIA.
This consideration comes in response to US plans, announced in April, to deploy missiles in the Indo-Pacific region as a countermeasure to what Washington perceives as increasing Chinese militarization.
Previously, such missile deployments would have been prohibited under the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, from which the United States formally withdrew in 2019, citing alleged violations by Moscow—a claim the Kremlin has consistently denied.
Moscow has repeatedly warned that it would abandon a self-imposed moratorium on deploying short and medium-range missiles if the US proceeded with its missile deployment plans in Asia and Europe.
Lavrov emphasized that Russia might have to take further actions. “We do not rule out additional steps in the sphere of nuclear deterrence, because our command centers and the locations of our nuclear forces will be in range of American forward-based missiles,” he told RIA.
