Russia issues warning to West as it pulls out of missile treaty
As missiles continued to rain down on Ukraine, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's former president, blamed Nato countries for their withdrawal from the Cold War-era agreement.
Medvedev, who has been exchanging barbs on social media with Donald Trump, made his comments after Russia's foreign ministry said Moscow no longer considered itself bound by the moratorium on the deployment of short and medium-range nuclear missiles.
'The Russian foreign ministry's statement on the withdrawal of the moratorium on the deployment of medium- and short-range missiles is the result of Nato countries' anti-Russian policy,' Medvedev posted in English on X.
'This is a new reality all our opponents will have to reckon with. Expect further steps.'
Medvedev, who now serves as deputy head of Russia's powerful Security Council, did not elaborate.
The US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in 2019, citing Russian non-compliance. Russia later said it would not deploy such weapons provided that Washington did not do so.
However, Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, signalled last December that Moscow would respond to what he called 'destabilising actions' by the US and Nato.
'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 a statement.
The INF treaty, signed in 1987 by Mikhail Gorbachev, the then Soviet leader and Ronald Reagan, the US president, eliminated an entire class of weapons – ground-launched missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometres (311 to 3,418 miles).
Medvedev, seen initially in the West as a potential moderate and reformer, has become one of the most hawkish senior officials on foreign policy in Moscow.
Mr Trump last Friday said he had ordered two nuclear submarines to be moved to 'the appropriate regions' in response to remarks from Medvedev about the risk of war between the nuclear-armed adversaries.
Overnight, Russian strikes hit a railway station in eastern Ukraine, killing a mechanic and wounding four workers, the national rail company said.
'Russian terrorists inflicted a massive strike on the railway infrastructure of Lozova,' Ukrainian Railways said in a Telegram post.
'A duty mechanic of one of the units was killed, four more railway workers were wounded. All the wounded are receiving necessary medical care.'
Several trains have been rerouted, it added.
Lozova's mayor said two children were among the wounded and residential quarters had been damaged.
'Lozova has survived the most massive attack since the beginning of the war,' Sergiy Zelensky said in a Facebook post.
Two people were also wounded in a separate Russian drone attack on Zaporizhzhia, the region's military administration said.
Ukraine's air force meanwhile said air defence units had downed 29 Iranian-made Shahed drones overnight in the north and east of the country.
It comes as a deadline set by Mr Trump for Russia to take steps to ending the war in Ukraine or face unspecified new sanctions looms.
Three rounds of peace talks in Istanbul have failed to make headway on a possible ceasefire, with the two sides appearing as far apart as ever.
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