President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia will produce new intermediate-range nuclear-capable missiles and then decide whether to deploy them within range of NATO nations in Europe and U.S. allies in Asia.
Putin’s threat was formulated vaguely: He said nothing about timelines for deploying the weapons, and by blaming the United States for bringing similar missiles to training exercises in Europe and Asia, he appeared to be signaling that he was open to talks.
But his timing was crucial, because he made the announcement just as key elections were about to begin in Britain and France, and days before NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington that starts on July 9. And it appeared to be Putin’s latest attempt to raise the stakes in his conflict with the West, less than two weeks after his visit to North Korea unnerved the United States and American allies in Asia.
The United States withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, during the Trump administration, after years of American accusations that Russia was cheating on the deal. The treaty had prohibited U.S. and Russian forces from having land-based ballistic or cruise missiles with a range of between 300 and 3,400 miles.
It was one of a series of treaty withdrawals that marked the end of more than half a century of traditional nuclear arms control, in which key agreements were negotiated in Washington and Moscow. There is only one such treaty left: New START, which limits the intercontinental weapons each nation can have. Expires in February 2026.
Putin could have announced plans to bolster his intermediate arms force at any time in the past five years, so his decision to do so now was notable. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has moved to deploy some modified weapons in Asia, ultimately intended to counter a growing Chinese nuclear force. But the United States has not permanently redeployed any of them to Europe.
In brief televised remarks in a video conference with his national security officials on Friday, Putin referred to some recent military exercises in Denmark and suggested it was possible the United States was preparing to leave weapons there.
“We need to react to this situation and decide what steps we will take next,” Putin said. “It seems that we need to start producing these attack systems and, based on the current situation, decide where to deploy them to ensure our security, if necessary.”
But his motivation may simply be a reaction to recent U.S. actions in Ukraine. When President Biden lifted his ban on Ukraine’s ability to fire U.S.-supplied weapons into Russian territory (albeit limiting it to the area around Kharkiv, where Russia is firing weapons), Putin made clear that there would be a response.
During the Cold War, such missiles were a key part of the Soviet force. But in the early 1990s, the United States withdrew all of its land-based nuclear cruise missiles and intermediate-range ballistic missiles from Europe, and the Soviets eliminated their SS-20 missiles. These measures were seen as important steps toward reducing tensions.
But a decade ago, Putin reversed Russia’s decision and deployed Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, the Russian region closest to Western European cities, which the Obama administration said violated the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty. But President Barack Obama decided not to withdraw from the treaty, arguing that it would eliminate any obligations on Putin. President Donald J. Trump reversed that decision.
The Pentagon has used the withdrawal to plan the deployment of weapons in the Pacific that would previously have been banned under the treaty. But when military exercises are conducted, they almost always involve mock-ups, not real nuclear weapons.
The threat to produce more nuclear-capable missiles was also just the latest example of how Putin has sought to gain leverage in his war against Ukraine by invoking the power and reach of his nuclear arsenal. At the beginning of the invasion, he ordered the weapons to be in a higher state of readiness; apparently they never were.
In October 2022, the Biden administration intercepted messages suggesting that Russian generals were planning to detonate a nuclear weapon on the battlefield in Ukraine, possibly at a military base. That crisis was eased without any nuclear use.
