Russia demands EU REJECTS US missiles in chilling warning – 'You don't want problems'

Moscow warned Brussels’ leaders against accepting any medium-range weapons from Washington, which scrapped a bilateral treaty restricting their use. Vladimir Yermakov, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s director on arms control and non-proliferation policy, blasted US President Donald Trump’s choice exit the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. The treaty banned nuclear weapons with ranges from 310 to 3,420 miles. Mr Yermakov warned that “security in Europe is indivisible, if you do not want problems from our side, do not create them for us”.

He added Russia was “interested in avoiding new missile crises in Europe and other regions”, Newsweek reports.

He said: “That is why we announced, in fact, a one-sided moratorium on the deployment of advanced intermediate- and shorter-range missiles, which, after the final breakdown of the INF treaty by Washington, we may have in response to American developments in the relevant regions, including Europe, until similar U.S. missiles are deployed there,” he added. “We hope that a responsible approach to European security prevails in Washington and NATO, and that they follow our example.”

Mr Yermakov also said Russia was “open to any multilateral initiatives working to strengthen international security and stability”.

This included Moscow’s plans to bring in China after Beijing’s exclusion from the INF was cited as one of the reasons that Mr Trump decided to leave it.

Mr Yermakov continued to stress Russia’s warning, asserting that it “constantly offered concrete and quite realistic measures” to resolve mutual complaints, “but in response, we received only a refusal from the United States and, what is significant, the very idea of mutual transparency was rejected”.

The warning comes after news Turkey is poised to deploy a precision air defence missile system bought from Russia in a move likely to raise tensions.

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said today the S-400 Triumf system would be rolled out in the Autumn in defiance of US military chiefs, who warned on Tuesday the move would have “grave consequences” for US/Turkish relations.

He explained: “The deployment of S-400s will begin in October and the Air Force is studying, in which regions it is better to deploy them.”

source: express.co.uk