Russia is now not sure by a moratorium on the deployment of short- and medium-range nuclear missiles, the Russian Ministry of Overseas Affairs has mentioned, with former President Dmitry Medvedev blaming NATO’s “anti-Russian coverage” and warning that Moscow will take “additional steps” in response.
Medvedev, who has engaged in a war of words on social media with United States President Donald Trump, made his international broadside after the Overseas Ministry’s announcement on Monday.
“The Russian Overseas Ministry’s assertion on the withdrawal of the moratorium on the deployment of medium- and short-range missiles is the results of NATO nations’ anti-Russian coverage,” Medvedev posted in English on the X social media platform.
“It is a new actuality all our opponents should reckon with. Count on additional steps,” he mentioned.
Medvedev, who serves because the deputy head of Russia’s highly effective Safety Council and has made several hawkish comments on Russia’s nuclear capabilities lately, didn’t elaborate on what “additional steps” could entail.
Final week, Trump mentioned that he had ordered two US nuclear submarines to be repositioned to “the suitable areas” in response to Medvedev’s remarks concerning the danger of conflict between Washington and Moscow.
The Russian Overseas Ministry’s assertion on the withdrawal of the moratorium on the deployment of medium- and short-range missiles is the results of NATO nations’ anti-Russian coverage.
It is a new actuality all our opponents should reckon with. Count on additional steps.— Dmitry Medvedev (@MedvedevRussiaE) August 4, 2025
In its assertion, Russia’s Overseas Ministry mentioned the creating state of affairs in Europe and the Asia Pacific prompted its reassessment on the deployment of short- and medium-range missiles.
“Because the state of affairs is creating in direction of the precise deployment of US-made land-based medium- and short-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific area, the Russian Overseas Ministry notes that the circumstances for sustaining a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of comparable weapons have disappeared,” the ministry mentioned.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Overseas Minister Sergey Lavrov mentioned final yr that Moscow could have to answer what they described as provocations by the US and NATO by lifting restrictions on missile deployment.
Lavrov instructed Russia’s state information company RIA Novosti in December that Moscow’s unilateral moratorium on the deployment of such missiles was “virtually now not viable and should be deserted”.
“The US arrogantly ignored warnings from Russia and China and, in observe, moved on to deploying weapons of this class in varied areas of the world,” Lavrov instructed the information company.
The US withdrew from the Intermediate-Vary Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in 2019, underneath the primary Trump administration, citing Russian non-compliance, however Moscow had mentioned that it will not deploy such weapons supplied that Washington didn’t accomplish that.
The INF treaty, signed in 1987 by Soviet chief Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan, had eradicated a complete class of weapons: ground-launched nuclear missiles with a spread of 500 to five,500km (311 to three,418 miles).
In its first public response to Trump’s feedback on the repositioning of US submarines, the Kremlin on Monday performed down the remarks and mentioned it was not trying to get right into a public spat with the US president.
“On this case, it’s apparent that American submarines are already on fight obligation. That is an ongoing course of, that’s the very first thing,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov instructed reporters.
“However usually, after all, we’d not wish to get entangled in such an argument and wouldn’t wish to touch upon it in any approach,” he mentioned.
“After all, we imagine that everybody needs to be very, very cautious with nuclear rhetoric,” he added.
The episode comes at a fragile second, with Trump threatening to impose new sanctions on Russia and consumers of its oil, together with India and China, until President Vladimir Putin agrees by Friday to a ceasefire in Moscow’s conflict on Ukraine.
Putin mentioned final week that peace talks had made some constructive progress however that Russia had the momentum in its conflict in opposition to Ukraine, signalling no shift in his place regardless of the looming deadline.