Russia will be adding 40 ICBMs this year
NATO chief decries ‘nuclear saber-rattling’
MOSCOW – Russia’s military will add over 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles this year alone that are capable of piercing any missile defenses, President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday in a blunt reminder of the nation’s nuclear might amid tensions with the West over Ukraine.
Putin spoke at the opening of an arms show at a shooting range in Alabino just west of Moscow, a huge display intended to showcase Russia’s resurgent military.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg accused the Russians of “nuclear saber-rattling,” and said that was one of the reasons the western military alliance has been beefing up its ability to defend its members.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, briefing reporters via teleconference from Boston, where he is recovering from surgery on a broken leg, called Putin’s announcement concerning.
“We’re trying to move in the opposite direction,” Kerry said. “We have had enormous cooperation from the 1990s forward with respect to the structure of nuclear weapons in the former territories of the Soviet Union. And no one wants to see us step backwards.”
He said Putin could be posturing.
“It’s really hard to tell,” Kerry said. “But nobody should hear that kind of an announcement from the leader of a powerful country and not be concerned about the implications.”
Russia-West relations have plunged to their lowest point since Cold War times over Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and support for a pro-Russia separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. and the EU have slapped Russia with economic sanctions, and Washington and its NATO allies have pondered an array of measures in response to Russia’s moves.
In his speech at the arms show, Putin vowed to continue a big arms modernization program despite the nation’s economic downturn. He specifically mentioned the Armata tanks and other new armored vehicles, which were first shown to the public during a Red Square military parade last month.
The Russian leader also noted the military was to start testing its new long-range early warning radar intended to monitor the western border and later will deploy another one in the east.