Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, issued a warning to Washington on Sunday, stating that if Washington placed long-range missiles in Germany, Russia would place missiles of a similar design within striking reach of the West.

In anticipation of a longer-term deployment that would include the SM-6, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and developing hypersonic weapons, the United States said on July 10 that it will begin deploying long-range missiles and opens a new tab in Germany in 2026.

Putin alerted the United States to the possibility that the move may spark a missile crisis such to the one that occurred during the Cold War during a speech to sailors from Russia, China, Algeria, and India on the occasion of Russian Navy Day in the former imperial city of St Petersburg.

“The flight time to targets on our territory of such missiles, which in the future may be equipped with nuclear warheads, will be about 10 minutes,” Putin said.

“We will take mirror measures to deploy, taking into account the actions of the United States, its satellites in Europe and in other regions of the world.”

Putin, who dispatched his troops into Ukraine in 2022, portrays the conflict as a historic conflict with the West, which he claims degraded Russia by intruding into what he views as Moscow’s area of influence following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Putin, according to the West and Ukraine, is grabbing territories in the manner of the empire. They have pledged to overthrow Russia, which presently has sway over sections of four eastern Ukrainian provinces and around 18% of the country, including Crimea.

The instant a missile struck a football pitch in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights is captured in this footage that was shared on social media on Saturday.

Russia claims that the territories, which were formerly a part of its empire, are now once more its property and will never be returned.

Diplomats from the United States and Russia claim that their current state of relations is worse than it was during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Although both Washington and Moscow have taken efforts to escalate the situation, they have also called for de-escalation.

Putin stated that the US intentions were similar to NATO’s 1979 decision to place Pershing II launchers in Western Europe, claiming that the US was inflaming tensions by transferring Typhon missile systems to Denmark and the Philippines.

The Soviet leadership, which included General Secretary Yuri Andropov, was concerned that the deployment of Pershing IIs was a part of a complex plot orchestrated by the United States to overthrow the Soviet Union’s military and political leadership.

“This situation is reminiscent of the events of the Cold War related to the deployment of American medium–range Pershing missiles in Europe,” Putin said.

In 1983, the Pershing II was sent to West Germany with the purpose of delivering a nuclear bomb with variable yield.

Andropov, who was sick, and the KGB saw a string of American actions in 1983, such as the deployment of Pershing II and a significant NATO exercise, as indications that the West was preparing to strike the Soviet Union first opens new tab.

Putin restated his prior threat, saying that when the US sent comparable missiles to Europe and Asia, Russia might start producing nuclear-capable missiles with intermediate and shorter ranges again and decide where to place them.

(Adapted from StraitsTimes.com)

Categories: Geopolitics, Uncategorized