Russia vowed to devise a military response to US plans to station long-range missiles in Germany and said it would reject any invitation it was offered to a peace summit called by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Washington has said it will start “episodic deployments … in Germany in 2026, as part of planning for enduring stationing of these capabilities in the future. When fully developed, these conventional long-range fires units will include SM-6, Tomahawk, and developmental hypersonic weapons, which have significantly longer range than current land-based fires in Europe.”
The White House said the programme “will demonstrate the United States’ commitment to Nato and its contributions to European integrated deterrence”, amid heightened security fears following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Russian deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov described the move as “regrettable in how destructive it is for regional security and strategic stability, but not unexpected”.
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“Without nerves, without emotions, we will develop, first of all, a military response to the new threat … These actions are aimed primarily at harming the security of our country,” he added. “I think this is just a link in the course of escalation, one of the elements of intimidation that today is almost the main element of the Nato and US line towards Russia.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Nato’s strengthening of its presence in eastern Europe “is a very serious threat to the national security of our country. All of this will require us to take … effective responses to deter Nato, to counteract Nato.”
Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev, who is now deputy chairman of its security council, said his country must “do everything” to ensure “either the disappearance of Ukraine or the disappearance of Nato. Or even better – the disappearance of both.”
[ Nato says leaders to back Ukraine amid growing Russian threat to EuropeOpens in new window ]
Ukraine held a summit in Switzerland last month at which scores of countries discussed Mr Zelenskiy’s 10-point “peace formula” for ending the war.
Russia was not invited but Kyiv says it may ask it to attend a follow-up summit in the coming months; several states with close ties to Moscow, most notably China, stayed away from the first summit because the Kremlin was not represented.
“We are aware of the intentions of the Kyiv regime and its western curators to ‘rehabilitate’ themselves for the failed peace summit … in Switzerland,” said Mikhail Galuzin, another Russian deputy foreign minister.
He described Mr Zelenskiy’s proposals – which include provisions for Russia to withdraw all troops from Ukrainian territory, pay reparations and face justice for war crimes – as “an ultimatum”.
“We do not accept these ultimatums and will not participate in such summits,” he said.
Russia says it will only discuss peace if Ukraine accepts the occupation of five of its regions and gives up its Nato membership ambitions.
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