Moscow — Russia has formally ended its self-imposed moratorium on deploying short- and medium-range ground-based missiles, accusing the United States of provoking a new era of military confrontation by stationing offensive missile systems across Europe and the Asia-Pacific.
The Russian Foreign Ministry made the announcement Monday, stating that Moscow is no longer bound by any previous limitations on missile deployment, as the conditions that justified restraint have “disappeared.”
“In the current conditions, we consider ourselves free from the obligations of the moratorium we declared earlier and are beginning to implement the measures to prepare for the deployment of ground-based missiles of the relevant classes,” the ministry said.
Russian officials had imposed the moratorium in 2019, after Washington withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Moscow had pledged not to deploy intermediate-range missiles unless the US made the first move.
That threshold, according to the Kremlin, has now been crossed.
The ministry pointed to US deployments of land-based missile launchers in Romania and Poland, as well as mobile mid-range launchers in the Philippines, as examples of NATO’s “deliberate and demonstrative disregard” for Russia’s national security.
“Since the situation is developing towards the actual deployment of U.S.-made land-based medium- and short-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, the conditions for maintaining a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of such systems have disappeared,” the ministry said.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov had previously warned that Russia’s restraint was reaching its “logical end,” noting that the United States had shown no intention of engaging in serious dialogue.
“At this point, we do not see any cardinal changes in the US’ plans,” Ryabkov said. “Russia’s restraint was neither appreciated nor reciprocated.”
The statement blamed Washington outright, declaring, “We are convinced that in the current conditions, the American side bears full and exclusive responsibility for the dismantling of the INF Treaty.”
Vasily Kashin, a senior defense analyst at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, said the Russian government had made it clear from the beginning that deployment of US systems in key allied states would void the moratorium.
“In other words, the events that took place aligned with the Russian leadership’s conditions for the production and deployment of medium-range missiles,” Kashin told TASS. “So one can say that in fact the moratorium is no longer in effect.”
Russia is now expected to expedite the deployment of the Oreshnik hypersonic missile system, a platform it claims can defeat Western air defenses and strike across continents within minutes.
Belarus has already signaled its willingness to host such systems, placing NATO’s eastern borders within easy range of Russian strategic weapons.
The United States and its NATO partners maintain that their deployments are defensive and do not violate any treaties. Russia has repeatedly dismissed these claims as dishonest cover for strategic expansion.
“The United States has not shown readiness for a serious dialogue on this topic,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said again in Monday’s release.
With the INF Treaty collapsed and the New START agreement set to expire in 2026, Russia’s formal withdrawal from restraint leaves no remaining arms control mechanisms in place between the two nuclear superpowers.
According to an official report by Reuters, the ministry stated, “Given the hostile course of the United States, we consider ourselves no longer bound by any prior limitations on missile deployment.” TASS also confirmed the move, quoting multiple Russian officials who argued that the current Western trajectory made restraint strategically untenable.
