US missiles in Germany | European cities will be targets for Russia, Moscow warns

(Moscow) Moscow warned Europe on Saturday that Washington’s decision to deploy long-range American missiles in Germany risks exposing the continent’s populations, whose capitals in turn become targets for Russia.

“This is a paradoxical situation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “Europe is a target for our missiles, our country is a target for American missiles in Europe. We have already experienced this, we have gone through it. We have the ability to contain these missiles, but the potential victims (of a Russian response, editor’s note) are the capitals of these European countries.”

At the NATO summit, Washington and Berlin announced in a joint statement Wednesday that the United States would “begin episodic deployments of long-range fire capabilities” in Germany in 2026, citing SM-6 missiles, Tomahawk missiles and hypersonic weapons under development, which will increase the reach of capabilities currently deployed in Europe.

This “will demonstrate the United States’ commitment to NATO and its contribution to an integrated European deterrent,” the joint statement said.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz welcomed “a necessary and important decision, taken at the right time” and which “guarantees peace”.

The German army does not have long-range missiles that can be launched from the ground, but only cruise missiles that can be fired from aircraft.

In response to the Kremlin’s warning, a US State Department spokesperson said that the United States and NATO “do not seek military conflict with Russia… but any military action against a NATO ally will be met with a crushing response.”

Russia is “the most significant and direct threat to the security of Allies and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic region,” the spokesman said, adding that “it was Russia that started this war.”

In their final statement in Washington, NATO countries said that “Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has shattered peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area and seriously undermines international security.”

The announcement was denounced by the Kremlin as a form of return to the “Cold War”, in reference to the confrontation between the USSR and the United States marked in particular by the Euromissile crisis in the late 1970s and 1980s, provoked by the Soviet, then American, deployment of nuclear-capable missiles in Europe.

The crisis ended with the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which banned ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of less than 500 to 5,500 kilometers.

But the treaty collapsed after the United States withdrew in 2019, repeatedly accusing Moscow of not respecting it, particularly with its 9M729 missile, fired by Iskander systems. Russia had then assured that it would observe a moratorium on the production of such devices if the United States did not deploy them at a distance that would allow them to reach its territory.

The deployment of US equipment announced Wednesday would contravene the INF Treaty if it were still in force.

On Friday, the defense ministers of the two nuclear powers spoke to discuss “reducing the risk of escalation,” according to Moscow, while Washington stressed on the occasion “the importance of maintaining lines of communication.”

“Europe is cracking”

Relations between Russia and NATO have deteriorated sharply since the start of the Russian offensive in 2022 on Ukraine, a country supported by members of the Atlantic Alliance.

Western countries have adopted severe economic sanctions against Russia, which has moved closer to China, the United States’ great rival on the world stage, and even to North Korea.

Mr Peskov said the situation caused by the missile deployments could undermine Europe, in the same way that the Cold War ended with the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

“Europe is cracking at every seam, it is not going through a good period,” he said on Russian television Russia 1.