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

Moscow warned Europe on Saturday, saying that Washington's decision to deploy American missiles in Germany Long-range operations risked above all exposing the populations of the continent, 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 capacity to contain these missiles, but the potential victims (of a Russian response, editor's note) are the capitals of these European countries.”

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

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a NATO summit on July 11, 2024 in Washington © AFP – Drew ANGERER

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”.

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

In response to the Kremlin's warning, a spokesperson for the US State Department said that the United States and NATO “does not seek military conflict with Russia… but that any military action directed against a NATO ally will result in a crushing response.”

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

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In their final declaration in Washington, the NATO countries considered that “the large-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia has shattered peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area and seriously harms 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 at the end of the 1970s and in the 1980s, caused by the Soviet deployment, then American, of nuclear-capable missiles in Europe.

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

But this treaty collapsed after the withdrawal in 2019 of the United States which repeatedly accused Moscow of not respecting it, in particular with its 9M729 missile, fired by Iskander systems . Russia 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.

< p>The deployment of American equipment announced on 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 an escalation”, according to Moscow, while Washington insisted on this occasion on “the importance of maintaining lines of communication “.

– “Europe is cracking” –

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

Leaders at the NATO summit on July 11, 2024 in Washington © AFP – Ludovic MARIN

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 believed that 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 all the seams, it is not going through a good period,” he said on Russian television Russia 1.

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