Russia said it continued developing nuclear missiles during moratorium on deployment

Russia said it continued developing intermediate and shorter-range nuclear-capable missiles during a moratorium on their deployment and now holds a “substantial” arsenal, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has said.

Ryabkov told state broadcaster Rossiya-1 that the moratorium, announced after the collapse of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, applied only to deployment and not to research or production.

“This time was used to develop the appropriate systems and to build a fairly substantial arsenal,” RIA news agency quoted him as saying. “As I understand it, we now possess it.”

Earlier this month, Moscow said it was ending the moratorium in response to what it described as U.S. and allied plans to station such weapons. The INF Treaty, signed by Washington and Moscow in 1987, banned ground-launched missiles with ranges between 500km and 5,500km. It was hailed at the time as a major step in easing Cold War tensions.

The United States withdrew from the pact in 2019 during Donald Trump’s first term, citing alleged Russian violations, which Moscow denied. Since then, both sides have accused each other of escalating a new arms race in Europe and Asia.

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