Will Russia deploy offensive missiles capable of striking Europe?

BERLIN — Russia plans to deploy offensive missiles inside putting distance of Western Europe if the US follows by way of on its promise to deploy related capabilities in Germany in 2026, Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned this weekend.

Whereas attending celebrations for Russia’s Navy Day on Sunday, Putin mentioned that his nation would take “mirror measures to deploy” these weapons, which could possibly carry nuclear warheads, “making an allowance for the actions of the US, its satellites in Europe and in different areas of the world.”

Putin identified the perceived risk that American plans to deploy medium-range missiles to Germany by 2026 pose to Russia.

“The flight time to targets on our territory of such missiles, which sooner or later could also be outfitted with nuclear warheads, will likely be about 10 minutes,” he mentioned.

The White Home on July 10 mentioned that the U.S. was planning to “start episodic deployments” of standard missiles to Germany in 2026. The assertion added that “these standard long-range fires items will embody SM-6, Tomahawk, and developmental hypersonic weapons, which have considerably longer vary than present land-based fires in Europe.”

It stays unclear which missiles Moscow would search to make use of or deploy, Nikolai Sokov, a senior fellow on the Vienna Heart for Disarmament and Nonproliferation who researches Russian missiles and arms management, mentioned in an e mail to Protection Information.

The bottom-launched Kalibr was the “apparent” selection, he mentioned, including that it “will likely be simple to develop and take a look at in time for 2026.” Rising the vary of Iskanders and even reviving the mothballed Rubezh venture may be on the desk.

Iskander missiles are already stationed in Kaliningrad and Belarus, whereas longer-range programs may very well be stationed deeper in Russian territory, rising early warning occasions on either side.

“There may be additionally the 9M729 cruise missile, which the US believes entered service within the 2010s,” Michael Duitsman, a analysis affiliate on the California-based James Martin Heart for Nonproliferation Research, mentioned in an e mail to Protection Information.

He identified that Putin explicitly talked about the “coastal troops” in his Sunday speech, which embody coastal artillery forces.

“The Russian navy has used two of those programs, Bal and Bastion, to strike land targets in Ukraine,” mentioned Duitsman, remarking that each may very well be upgraded with missiles of elevated ranges. “With Oniks-M missiles, [the Bastion unit based in Kaliningrad] may hypothetically strike all through everything of Poland along with their assigned anti-ship mission,” he mentioned.

The us and U.S. in 1987 signed the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which outlawed this whole class of weapons with a spread of 500 to five,500 kilometers. By 1991, each nations had destroyed their whole stockpiles — a mixed complete of two,692 missiles.

The Trump administration pulled out of the treaty in early 2019, alleging repeated Russian violations; in response, Russia, too, suspended its participation.

In his Sunday speech, Putin mentioned that if the U.S. follows by way of on its missile deployment plans, Russia “will think about ourselves free from the beforehand imposed unilateral moratorium on the event of intermediate and shorter-range strike weapons.” The creation of such programs, he mentioned, was “in its closing stage.”

“We’re coming into a brand new Euromissile disaster,” mentioned Nikolai Sokov, the senior fellow on the VCDNP. He added that, not like Gorbachev, who was instrumental to the INF treaty’s success, Putin was much less more likely to make concessions. “A stand-off is extra probably, and an settlement is much less probably than was the case within the Nineteen Eighties,” Sokov mentioned.