Russia’s top negotiator on arms control warned the United States today that Moscow would reject a proposed moratorium on the development of short- and medium-range missiles if Washington moves ahead with the deployment of such missiles in Asia and Europe.

The United States formally withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia in 2019 after saying Moscow was violating the agreement, a charge the Kremlin denied.

President Vladimir Putin has proposed to the United States and several Western European NATO members that there be a moratorium on the development of missiles previously banned by the INF treaty.

But Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who is leading the arms control talks, said the United States was “moving rapidly” toward deploying such missiles in both Asia and Europe.

“Therefore, our own moratorium, which was announced by the president of the Russian Federation, in the light of such developments, of course, cannot be maintained“, Ryabkov told the Kommersant newspaper.

“Americans think it doesn’t matterRyabkov said. “We believe that in this way they are dealing a new strong blow to global stability and the security of the respective regionsn”.

The United States has publicly accused Russia of developing the 9M729 cruise missiles, known by the NATO code name SSC-8, which it sees as grounds for its withdrawal from the INF treaty.

In his proposal for a moratorium, Putin suggested that Russia could agree not to station the missiles in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad. Since withdrawing from the treaty the United States has conducted tests of similar missiles.