Igor Ivanovsky
The United States de-manded that Russia remove missiles from Europe that violate the INF Treaty (treaty on the non-proliferation of medium and short-range missiles). The Americans were not even embarrassed by the fact that the treaty itself had not been there for more than two years. By the way, it was their fault. What can such statements mean?
Jeffrey Eberhardt, the US President’s special env-oy for nuclear nonproliferation, made a loud statement. He was asked what he thinks about Vladimir Putin ‘s proposal to introduce a moratorium on the deployment of medium and short-range missiles in Europe. The solution to the problem, according to the American official, is for Russia to get rid of missiles that violate the INF Treaty. In the meantime, she does not do this, and there is nothing to think about.
Here it will be useful to remind that the same contract ordered to live a long time back in 2019. Then the State Department announced a “clear violation” by the Russian Federation, accused us of prohibited developments and, loudly slamming the door, withdrew from the agreement. At the same time, Moscow has repeatedly called for a constructive dialogue. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia is interested in preserving the INF Treaty, but everything is useless.
Then Vladimir Putin came up with a new initiative and proposed a moratorium on the deployment of medium and short-range missiles in Europe. Of course, if the NATO leadership will meet halfway and respond in kind. But NATO did not need it. “It’s as if they’ve gone deaf, they don’t hear,” the Russian president wondered that he hadn’t received any answer. It was in the fall of 2019.
The rumor returned unexpectedly in October 2021. And not only to the Americans. The European Parliament is also concerned about its own defense capability and accused Russia of being involved in “weakening the architecture of conventional arms control in Europe.” Our fault, according to the parliamentarians, is that we have withdrawn from the Open Skies Treaty. The same one that was unilaterally torn apart by the same America in May 2020. Donald Trump then accused the Russian Federation of allegedly non-compliance with the established regulations, after which the United States buried this agreement as well. However, according to the European Parliament, we were left to blame. Anyway.
The question is: why would the topic of missiles and treaties that have not existed for a long time come up again, why all this talk about aggravation of the situation?
You can only make assumptions here. The tests of the newest Zircon hypersonic missile, the characteristics of which, according to experts, are comparable to nuclear weapons, have been successfully completed. The potential enemy has practically no time to detect and intercept it.
At the same time, the question again became relevant in the United States: maybe it was in vain that we left the INF Treaty? Or maybe it is worth considering Vladimir Putin’s proposal on the nonproliferation of missiles? But the best defense, as you know, is offense. Hence the aggressive rhetoric and escalation of the situation.
That’s the American edition of Breaking Defense claims that the US Army should give priority to Russia, not China “to confront Moscow’s actions (in Eastern Europe ), Army (USA) is necessary to ensure in future budgets, maintenance of adequate investment in enhanced capabilities for conducting long ground battles, “the article says.
And then there is even a list of tanks, howitzers and armored personnel carriers that need to be purchased. Forbes columnist David Ex, who is also preparing for military clashes on land, agrees with them and happily reports that NATO countries can cut off the supply of food to the Kaliningrad region in wartime. All this is sad: someone thinks about war, and someone about peace. But a constructive dialogue seems to be failing again.
