Tension soars between US, Russia over breach of nuclear treaty

A senior U.S. general on Wednesday accused Russia of deploying a land-based cruise missile in violation of "the spirit and intent" of a nuclear arms treaty and charged that Moscow's intention is to threaten U.S. facilities in Europe and the NATO alliance. The Kremlin has denied the accusations saying that it is committed to "all its international obligations, including under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty," as reported by Russian news agency TASS.

Russia was, remains and will remain committed to all its international obligations, including those arising from the INF Treaty," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "That is why we disagree with this and we will reject any accusations on this score," Peskov said. "In the situation with the Russian Federation and our Eurasian geopolitical position, we have quite different architecture of possible threats to our security. Nevertheless, Russia remains all the same committed to its obligations," he also added.

"We believe that the Russians have deliberately deployed it in order to pose a threat to NATO and to facilities within the NATO area of responsibility," Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

Selva said he sees no indication that Moscow intends to return to compliance with the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which bans an entire class of weapons — all land-based cruise missiles with a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. The treaty was a landmark in arms control in the final years of the Cold War.

Selva's accusation takes on added political significance in light of President Donald Trump's stated goal of improving relations with Russia, even as Moscow is perceived by U.S. allies in Europe as a military threat of growing urgency. The alleged treaty violation comes amid multiple congressional investigations of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The FBI also is probing ties between Russia and Trump associates during the campaign. Trump has said little about the INF treaty but on multiple occasions has questioned the value of a separate, more recent treaty that limits the number of strategic nuclear weapons the United States and Russia can deploy to 1,550 warheads each, starting in 2018.

Even before Trump's election, the Pentagon was weighing implications of a shift in Russian nuclear doctrine that seems to lower the threshold for the combat use of nuclear weapons. The Russians have framed their new thinking as "escalate, to de-escalate," meaning possibly using a small number of nuclear weapons to persuade an opponent not to escalate the conflict and possibly lead to all-out nuclear war.

"We have to account ... for what that means," Selva said Wednesday.

"We've begun an investigation of a series of potential strategy changes," he said, in part by conducting war games and military exercises.