By Staff, Agencies

President Vladimir Putin announced that his country’s defense industry is ready to start producing intermediate and shorter-range missiles that had been banned under a now-defunct treaty with the US.

The Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty [INF] had prohibited these systems, but the US withdrew from it in 2019. Moscow chose to maintain the ban so long as Washington abided by it as well.

“As I’ve said, in connection with the US withdrawal from this treaty and the announcement that they are starting production, we also consider ourselves entitled to start research, development, and in the future, production,” Putin said at a press conference following the Shanghai Cooperation Organization [SCO] summit in Astana, Kazakhstan.

He further added: “We are conducting this R&D, and we are ready to start production. We have already, in principle, given the relevant instructions to our industry.”

Putin mentioned during a meeting of the National Security Council in Moscow last week the possibility that Russia might resume production of previously banned missile systems, citing the “hostile actions” of the US.

“We now know that the US is not only producing these missile systems, but has also brought them to Europe, Denmark, to use in exercises. Not long ago, it was reported that they were in the Philippines,” Putin explained at the time.