MOSCOW, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- Russia's top soldier warned Thursday his country could pull out of the 19-year-old Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.
Such an action could leave Western Europe exposed for the first time in a generation to the threat of intermediate-range Russian ballistic missiles.
"It is possible for a party to abandon the treaty (unilaterally) if it provides convincing evidence that it is necessary to do so," said four star Army Gen. Yury Baluyevsky, the Chief of Russia's General Staff. "We have such evidence at present," he said Thursday according to a report from the RIA Novosti news agency.
"Unfortunately, by adhering to the INF treaty, Russia lost many unique missile systems," Baluyevsky said. His forthright threat followed comments last week by his boss Russian Defense Minsiter Sergei Ivanov wondering whether last Soviet President Mikhail Giorbachev had made a mistake by agreeing to sign the INF.
"Baluyvsky's remarks could be interpreted as a strong warning to the United States regarding its plans to deploy elements of its anti-missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, and as a follow up to recent statements made by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov," RIA Novosti said.
Speaking at the annual Munich Security Conference on Feb. 10, Putin warned that if the Bush administration pushed ahead with its determination to deploy anti-ballistic missile defenses in Central Europe, it could set off a new arms race.
RIA Novosti noted that the INF treaty, signed in Washington on Dec. 8, 1987, had led to the destruction of U.S. and Soviet nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 300 miles to 3,400 miles. "By the treaty's deadline of June 1, 1991, a total of 2,692 such weapons had been destroyed, 846 by the United States and 1,846 by the Soviet Union," the report said.
The INF Treaty came into effect in June 1988 and has no time limit or end point.
