Unic Press UK: The President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin says it remains in the United States’ interest that the range/speed of Russian military weapons are put into consideration by Washington in making a range of decisions, saying that his country’s military arsenal have devastating strength if used.
During a meeting Wednesday with representatives of the print and TV news network, Putin said: “This is not a threat. But if they create such threats to us, they need to know what will follow, so that they will not later accuse us of being overly aggressive or something else. We are telling them: guys, you should count. Can you count? You should count before you make a decision that would create additional threats to us,” the Russian news agency Tass reported.
Not done with acrimony over the manner the U.S. has been handling international security issues, Putin reiterated his country’s tit-for-tat and asymmetric measures with regard to his country’s suspension of Russia’s participation in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) after the U.S. suspended its liabilities under the INF Treaty with effect from February 2.
“…Russia is not planning to be the first to deploy these missiles to Europe. If they are indeed manufactured and sent to the European continent, and the US does have these plans, anyway, we haven’t heard other statements, this will sharply deteriorate international security and create serious threats to Russia since it takes up to 10-12 minutes for certain types of these missiles to fly to Moscow… In this case, we will be forced, and I want to stress this, we will be forced to envisage tit-for-tat and asymmetric measures… Russia will be forced to create and deploy those types of weapons, which could be used not only against those regions from where we will face a direct threat, but also against those regions, hosting the centers, where decisions are taken on using those missile systems threatening us,” Putin said in his annual State of the Nation address to the Federal Assembly on Wednesday, TASS reports.
