US has no proof of Russia's violation of INF Treaty

The US does not have any proof of Russia's violations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and Washington seeks to draw Russian into an arms race, member of the Russian Federation Council's committee on defense and security Frants Klintsevich said on Sunday.

On Saturday US President Donald Trump said that Washington will withdraw from the INF Treaty because Russia is violating the terms of the agreement. At the same time, he did not rule out signing a new agreement on intermediate-range nuclear forces with Moscow and Beijing if Russia and China provide guarantees of halting the production of such weapons.

Commenting on this, Klintsevich said that "this was not unexpected." "It's clear that the US does not have any evidence to prove that Russia violated the Treaty conditions. This decision, which was made without taking into account the interests of allies in Europe, is a direct reflection of the strategy of sudden movements which the US has consistently pursued on the international arena over the last years," he added.

"They want to draw us into an arms race, like it happened before with the Soviet Union. It won't work. I don't have any doubts that our country will be able to ensure its security under any circumstances," Klintsevich noted.

The US has first accused Russia of violating the conditions of the INF Treaty in July 2014. Russia refuted all such allegations and put forward their concerns about US compliance with the Treaty.

The INF Treaty was signed between USSR and US on December 8, 1987 in Washington, DC.