Russia escalates in Ukraine
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Al Jazeera
4 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
What is the missile treaty Russia has walked out of – and why?
Russia on Monday announced it will stop abiding by a decades-old nuclear missile treaty with the United States, raising fears of the return of a Cold War-style arms race. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, signed in 1987, had put a moratorium on the deployment of short and medium-range missiles between the world's leading military powers. US President Donald Trump withdrew from the treaty in 2019, during his first term. Russia remained part of the agreement until Monday. It had pledged not to deploy such weapons as long as Washington did not do so – though the US has repeatedly accused Moscow of violating the pact. The Russian move comes days after Trump ordered the repositioning of two nuclear submarines in response to what he called 'threatening comments' made by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, currently deputy chair of Russia's Security Council. In recent weeks, the Trump administration has ramped up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. He has also targeted India with tariffs and threats for buying Russian oil. Meanwhile, the US special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, is scheduled to visit Moscow this week as part of efforts to end the Ukraine-Russia war. So why has the Kremlin withdrawn from the treaty, and will it affect defence agreements between two of the major powers? What is the INF disarmament treaty? The treaty was inked by US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, ending the deadlock of the Cold War arms race. It banned possessing, producing or test-flying ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500km (311 to 3,418 miles). More than 2,600 missiles from both sides were destroyed as part of the treaty that covers both nuclear and conventional warheads. It does not cover air-launched or sea-launched weapons. Washington demolished 846, and Moscow 1,846 as part of the disarmament efforts. What justification did Russia give for withdrawing from the decades-old treaty? Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday cited the movement of US missile platforms in Europe, the Philippines and Australia as a direct threat to Moscow's security. 'Since the situation is developing towards the actual deployment of US-made land-based medium- and short-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, the Russian Foreign Ministry notes that the conditions for maintaining a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of similar weapons have disappeared,' the ministry said in its statement. The ministry said that Moscow would end the moratorium to maintain strategic balance and counter the new threat. Medvedev, the former president, said the Russian decision is the result of NATO countries' 'anti-Russian policy'. 'This is a new reality all our opponents will have to reckon with. Expect further steps,' he posted on X on Monday. Medvedev was also engaged in a heated social media exchange with Trump last week after the US president served an ultimatum to Russia to end the war in 10 days. In response, Trump on Friday ordered two nuclear submarines to be moved to 'the appropriate regions'. The Kremlin has, however, urged caution on 'nuclear rhetoric'. 'It is obvious that American submarines are already on combat duty. This is an ongoing process, that's the first thing,' Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. 'But in general, of course, we would not want to get involved in such a controversy and would not want to comment on it in any way,' he added. 'Of course, we believe that everyone should be very, very careful with nuclear rhetoric.' Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had in December warned against what he called 'destabilising actions' by the US and its NATO allies. Russia has also threatened to respond against a planned deployment of US missiles in Germany from 2026. When did the US withdraw from the treaty and why? The US withdrew from the INF treaty in 2019 during Trump's first term, citing Russian non-compliance. Trump had accused Moscow of breaching the treaty by developing and deploying the land-based, nuclear-capable Novator 9M729 missile system, dubbed SSC-X-8 by NATO. Moscow said the missile's range (500km) was shorter than the threshold set in the 1987 treaty. Trump had also cited the development of such missiles by China, which was not a party to the agreement. Under former US President Barack Obama, Trump's predecessor, Washington had moved to boost its military capabilities in the Asia Pacific to counter China's military power. But during his first seven months in power, Trump has largely been consumed by his tariff wars against allies and rivals alike. He has rolled back a steep tariff he had imposed on China in early April, even as a report by US intelligence agencies in March said that Beijing is now the US's top military and cyber-threat. And in recent days, he has turned his attention to Russia, trying to pressure it to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine. The West believes that Russia's Oreshnik ballistic missile – which it fired in Ukraine last November – violates the INF treaty. The missile has a range of 500km (311 miles). Last week, Putin announced the deployment of the missile in Belarus, which shares a 1,084km (674 miles) border with Ukraine. Russia also revamped its nuclear doctrine last year, formally lowering its threshold for use of nuclear weapons. Which other disarmament agreements have the two countries withdrawn from? The US and the Soviet Union – the two most militarised nations at the time – were engaged in an arms race until the collapse of the communist nation in 1991. The two sides, however, signed a number of agreements, such as the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the INF, as part of arms control measures. President George W Bush withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, which was aimed at keeping Russia and the US from creating missile defences. During his first term in office, Trump also withdrew from the 1992 Open Skies Treaty in 2020. Two years later, Russia followed suit, walking out of the treaty that allowed countries to fly over each other's territory to conduct unarmed observation flights. Which security agreements are still in place between the US and Russia? The New START Treaty, which stands for 'Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty', remains the last major arms control agreement between Russia and the US. The treaty signed in 2010 caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads the two countries can deploy. It came into force in February 2011. Under the agreement, the two sides committed to the following: Deploying no more than 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads and a maximum of 700 long-range missiles and bombers. A limit of 800 intercontinental ballistic missiles in deployment. Each side can conduct up to 18 inspections of strategic nuclear weapons sites yearly to ensure the other has not breached the treaty's limits. But in 2023, Putin announced Moscow was suspending its participation in the pact, accusing Washington of non-compliance with its provisions and of trying to undermine Russia's national security. That treaty expires next year. The Russian decision came months after the US stopped exchanging data on its nuclear weapons stockpiles under the New START Treaty.
Al Jazeera
5 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Dmitry Medvedev: From failed Kremlin reformer to Trump's boogeyman
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's former president and prime minister, is back in the limelight. Last week, United States President Donald Trump warned him to 'watch his words' and ordered a repositioning of two US nuclear submarines in response to Medvedev's online threats. The repositioning closer to Russia followed 'highly provocative statements' from Medvedev, who serves as deputy head of Russia's Security Council, Trump wrote on his Truth Social network on August 1. 'I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that,' Trump wrote, without specifying the regions or the submarines' class. Medvedev, who, despite his title, has no power to order nuclear strikes, retorted with a gloating remark. 'If some words of Russia's former president cause such a nervous response from the oh-so-scary US president, it means that Russia is right about everything and will keep going its own way,' Medvedev wrote on Telegram. 'Let [Trump] remember his favourite movies about the Walking Dead [zombie apocalypse series] and about how dangerous can be the 'dead hand' that doesn't exist naturally,' Medvedev wrote. The online feud began in mid-July, when Trump gave Russian President Vladimir Putin, Medvedev's boss and mentor for three decades, 50 days to make a peace deal with Ukraine. Medvedev called the ultimatum 'theatrical' and said that 'Russia didn't care'. 'Nuclear weapons are not Moscow's monopoly' According to a former Russian diplomat, while Trump's warnings send a signal to the Kremlin, the 'noise' around the submarines has no military significance. 'What matters far more is that Trump's words served as a reminder – nuclear weapons are not Moscow's monopoly,' Boris Bondarev, who focused on nuclear non-proliferation and arms control, told Al Jazeera. Medvedev's comments reflect Putin's views – and Trump's response could return both down to the earth of realpolitik, he added. 'Had such an approach been part of a general strategy to make Putin's view on the world and his own place in it more adequate, it would have been the beginning of a real end of the war' in Ukraine, said Bondarev, who quit his foreign ministry job to protest against Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 'But it seems to me that Donald just uttered [his threat] and doesn't mean anything serious,' he said. A pawn in the US-China game To a Ukrainian military analyst, the Trump-Medvedev feud is part of Moscow's and Washington's bigger political games. 'Putin uses Medvedev as a tool to express statements related to nuclear weapons, he doesn't want to discredit his own good peacekeeper's name,' Lieutenant-General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said ironically. In Moscow's 'media spectacle' with Washington, Medvedev plays the 'bad cop', Romanenko told Al Jazeera. Meanwhile, Trump's order to reposition the subs is a step to score a diplomatic victory ahead of his summit with China's Xi Jinping. The summit may take place on September 3, when Beijing will lavishly celebrate the 80th anniversary of Japan's surrender that ended World War II. Putin has already been invited to oversee a military parade in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, but Trump is still mulling his response. The online feud may be presented to Xi as a victory of sorts, Romanenko said – along with Moscow's possible agreement to an air and sea ceasefire. The agreement will be forced by the heavy damage Ukrainian drones inflicted on Russia's military depots, transport infrastructure and oil refineries, Romanenko said. 'Playing the fool' Trump may not realise that some Russians see Medvedev as a political has-been whose online rants are reportedly fuelled by his worsening alcoholism. He was elected Russia's president in 2008, after Putin had completed two consecutive presidential terms and could not run for a third time. The move and the ensuing propaganda campaign to promote Medvedev's candidacy were nicknamed a 'castling' after the chess term. It immediately spawned political jokes that ridiculed the real power dynamic between Medvedev and Putin. In one of them, Putin arrives at a restaurant with Medvedev and orders a steak. The waiter asks, 'And what about the vegetable?' referring to the choice of a side dish. After a long look at Medvedev, Putin answers, 'The vegetable will have steak, too.' However, Medvedev cultivated a personal and political image that contrasted with Putin's. He started using social networks, met with the rock bands U2 and Deep Purple, and began cautious reforms that made analysts talk about a political thaw and a reset of Russia's ties with the West. However, Medvedev's failed perestroika ended with giant rallies against Putin's 2012 return to the presidency and massive vote rigging. The resulting tightening of political screws ended with Putin's turn to belligerent nationalism and the war in Ukraine. Five years later, another wave of popular protests throughout Russia followed the release of a documentary about Medvedev's luxurious, Monaco-sized palatial complex. The documentary was made by the late opposition leader Alexey Navalny's team and got tens of millions of views on YouTube. At the time, as Medvedev served as prime minister, his approval ratings kept waning. In 2022, Putin unceremoniously sacked him – and gave him the Security Council job, a sinecure for demoted allies. The fall from Putin's grace prompted Medvedev's transformation into an online troll who posts threats to Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations and sabre-rattles Moscow's nuclear might. Many posts appeared online long after midnight. 'Degraded' There are three viewpoints on why Medvedev changed his tune to become the Kremlin's attack dog, according to Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany's Bremen University. One is that after not being allowed to run for president for the second time in 2012, Medvedev started drinking and 'degraded to the current state', Mitrokhin told Al Jazeera. The second one is that by 'playing fool', he repeats what Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had done to survive under his ruthless predecessor Joseph Stalin to survive and compete for the Kremlin throne after his boss's death, Mitrokhin said. And the third explanation Mitrokhin agrees with is that Medvedev 'as a character, has always been very vile and warlike'. But his aggression was only limited to what Putin allowed him to do – such as nominally order Russia's 2008 war with ex-Soviet Georgia or be in charge of supplying weaponry to pro-Moscow rebels in southeastern Ukraine in 2014. Mitrokhin described him as 'a very aggressive small man with plenty of psychological complexes – a Napoleon's syndrome – who has a chance to reveal his 'inner self'. And he does – with his master's approval'.
Al Jazeera
7 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,258
Here is how things stand on Tuesday, August 5: Fighting Three people were killed in a Russian attack on the Stepnohirsk community in Ukraine's Zaporizhia region, the local military administration said on Telegram. Russia launched 405 attacks on 10 settlements in the region in the past day, the administration said on Monday. Russian drone attacks killed three people in the Chuhuiv district of Ukraine's Kharkiv region, the regional prosecutor's office said. The victims included a man killed when Russian drones caused a fire in his home in the village of Losivka, and a man and a woman who were riding a motorcycle when they were killed. The prosecutor's office said it was investigating the motorcycle attack as a possible war crime. Russian attacks across Ukraine's Kherson region killed one person and damaged homes, cars and a gas pipeline, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said. A man who was injured by artillery shelling on the town of Beryslav on July 27 also passed away due to his injuries, Prokudin added. Russian attacks killed one person in Dobropillya city in the Pokrovsky region and another person in Kostiantynivka city, in Ukraine's Donetsk region, Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin said. Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) claimed that Ukrainian drones hit five Russian fighter jets at Saky airfield in Russian-occupied Crimea, destroying one of them. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that mercenaries from China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and African countries are fighting with Russian forces in the Vovchansk area of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine. Ukraine's general staff acknowledged that it was responsible for a drone attack that caused a fire at a fuel depot of Sochi airport in southern Russia on Sunday. Military aid The Netherlands will contribute 500 million euros ($578m) to buy US military equipment for Ukraine, including Patriot air defence system parts and missiles. The purchase will make the Netherlands the first country to participate in a new scheme where NATO countries fund US weapons to send to Kyiv. Sanctions India's Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement that the United States and European Union's 'targeting' of the nation for importing oil from Russia after Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine was 'unjustified and unreasonable'. Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff at the White House, said earlier on Fox News: 'What he [US President Donald Trump] said very clearly is that it is not acceptable for India to continue financing this war by purchasing the oil from Russia.' Trump said he would 'substantially' increase tariffs on India for what he said was the buying and reselling of 'massive amounts' of Russian oil 'for big profits'. Ceasefire talks Trump said his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, would again visit Russia to continue talks on its war in Ukraine. Politics and diplomacy Russian Former President Dmitry Medvedev said that Moscow's abandonment of a moratorium on medium- and short-range nuclear missiles was 'the result of NATO countries' anti-Russian policy', in a post on X. The trial has begun in the March 22, 2024, shooting attack in a Moscow concert hall that killed 149 people. Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed, without providing evidence, that Ukraine was involved in the attack, an allegation Kyiv vehemently denies. Corruption Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau said in a statement that it had charged six people, including a lawmaker and a government official, involved in 'systematically misappropriat[ing] funds allocated by local authorities for defence needs', including funds meant for the purchase of drones and jamming equipment for the military.
