Russia ends missile treaty compliance — but broke it years ago

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation has announced the end of the moratorium on the deployment of ground-based Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF). But the Center for Countering Disinformation believes that it is just a formality — the missiles were already in the temporarily occupied Crimea.

It was reported by Andrii Kovalenko, the head of the Center for Countering Disinformation, on his Telegram.

What is the falsity of the Russian Federation's statement about the INF?

In its statement, the Russian agency justifies this decision by the "buildup" of the INF by the countries of the "collective West", which, in their opinion, are deploying these missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

The Russian leadership notes that specific retaliatory actions will be determined after an "interdepartmental analysis" of the scale of the deployment of American and other Western ground-based INFs and the general situation in the sphere of international security and strategic stability.

In turn, the Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine emphasizes that Russian missiles have been on standby since 2019 in the temporarily occupied Crimea, when Donald Trump withdrew from the INF Treaty due to a Russian violation.

"Now it is presented as a "response" to "Western escalation" and aid to Ukraine, but the meaning is purely propaganda," Andrii Kovalenko noted. 

According to him, this step will not change anything in the balance of power — except that Moscow will be able to continue to scare with the "Oreshnik" in Belarus, the one that did not fly during the second launch.

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