Overview

• Russia formally announced on August 4 that it no longer considers itself bound by the 1987 INF Treaty and has ended its unilateral moratorium on ground-launched intermediate-range missiles.
• The original pact between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev eliminated nearly 2,700 missiles with ranges of 500–5,500 km by its June 1991 deadline.
• Moscow cited recent U.S. forward deployments of mid-range systems in Europe and live-fire exercises in the Asia-Pacific as grounds for abandoning its self-imposed restrictions.
• The Russian Foreign Ministry warned that it will undertake offsetting military-technical measures to neutralize what it calls emerging threats to its strategic balance.
• With the INF framework defunct, only the New START treaty remains in force between Washington and Moscow, prompting worries over the erosion of nuclear arms control.