{"id":32640,"date":"2019-02-20T15:25:09","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T15:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32640"},"modified":"2019-02-20T15:25:09","modified_gmt":"2019-02-20T15:25:09","slug":"putin-warns-us-with-new-missiles-aimed-at-western-capitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32640","title":{"rendered":"Putin warns US with new missiles aimed at Western capitals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin<\/a>\u00a0warned the United States<\/a> against deploying new missiles in Europe, threatening to retaliate in kind by targeting Western capitals with his own\u00a0new weaponry<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Delivering a state of the nation address, Putin said the US abandoned a key arms control pact –\u00a0the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty<\/a> – to free its hands to build new missiles and tried to shift the blame for the move on Russia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I’m saying this clearly and openly –\u00a0Russia will be forced to create and deploy new types of weapons that could be used not only against the territories where a direct threat to us comes from, but also against the territories where decision-making centres directing the use of missile systems threatening us are located,” Putin said.<\/p>\n

“The capability of such weapons, including the time to reach those centres, will be equivalent to the threats against Russia.”<\/p>\n

He did not say what specific new weapons Moscow could deploy, but he reported quick progress on an array of new systems presented a year ago.<\/p>\n

New arms<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Putin said the first batch of Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles will be deployed this year.<\/p>\n

He added the tests of the new Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missile, the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile and the Poseidon nuclear-powered underwater drone have been progressing successfully.<\/p>\n

The first submarine equipped to carry the Poseidon will be commissioned later this year, Putin reported.<\/p>\n

He also announced the coming deployment of the new Zircon hypersonic missile for the Russian navy, saying it’s capable of flying at nine times the speed of sound and will have a range of 1,000km.<\/p>\n

He said the Zircon programme will not be too costly as the missile has been designed to equip Russia’s existing surface ships and submarines.<\/p>\n

While issuing a tough warning to the US, Putin also said Russia still wants friendly relations with Washington and remains open to arms control talks.<\/p>\n

“We don’t want confrontation, particularly with such a global power as the US,” he said.<\/p>\n

The US has accused Russia of breaching the INF treaty<\/a> by deploying a cruise missile that violates its limits – accusations Moscow rejected.<\/p>\n

The INF treaty banned the production, testing and deployment of land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500km to 5,500km.<\/p>\n

The intermediate-range weapons were seen as particularly destabilising as they take less time to reach their targets compared with the intercontinental ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n

That would leave practically no time for decisionmakers, raising the likelihood of a global nuclear conflict over a false launch warning.<\/p>\n

Internal audience<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The tough talk on missiles seemed aimed at stirring up patriotic support for Putin, 66, who won re-election last year with more than 76 percent of the vote but has been recently struggling with dropping poll numbers.<\/p>\n

A survey by Russia’s independent Levada Centre released in January found his approval rating at 64 percent – a figure many Western leaders could only dream of, but Putin’s lowest in five years.<\/p>\n

Most of Wednesday’s speech focused on promises to address poor living standards, a key source of frustration for many Russians nearly 20 years after Putin came to power.<\/p>\n

“We cannot wait, the situation must change for the better now,” Putin told assembled legislators from Russia’s lower house State Duma and upper house Federation Council.<\/p>\n

“Within this year, [Russians] should feel changes,” he said.<\/p>\n

Putin lamented about 19 million Russians were living below the poverty line, saying: “This is too much … The state should help.”<\/p>\n

He focused, in particular, on help for Russian families, pointing to a demographic crisis that has seen birth rates fall drastically since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

Last year, the government’s statistics agency said the country’s birth rate had fallen by 11 percent in 2017 to the lowest level in a decade.<\/p>\n

“The incomes of Russian families should of course rise,” he said, promising new child benefits and lower taxes for larger families.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin\u00a0warned the United States against deploying new missiles in Europe, threatening to retaliate in kind by targeting Western capitals with his own\u00a0new weaponry. Delivering a state of the nation address, Putin said the US abandoned a key arms control pact –\u00a0the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty – to free its hands to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":32641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}