President Vladimir Putin announced today Friday that Russia will resume production of short- and medium-range missiles with possibility of using ground nuclear weaponsbecause of moves, he said, by the United States to deploy such missiles in both Europe and Asia.

The United States formally withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia withdrawing in 2019, after saying Moscow was in violation of the accord, a charge the Kremlin denied.

Russia then imposed a moratorium on its own missile development, which had previously been banned by the INF Treaty.

“It is known that the United States not only produces these missile systems, but they are already taking them to Europe for exercises in Denmark,” argued Putin at a meeting of Russia’s Security Council in the shadow of the war in Ukraine.

It was recently announced that (the missile systems) are in the Philippines. It is not known whether they took the missiles from there or not.” Russian Foreign and Defense Ministers Sergei Lavrov and Andrei Belusov presented reports on this issue.

Putin insisted that Russia he was thus forced to answer.

“Obviously, we need to start building these strike systems and then, based on the actual situation, make decisions about where – if it is necessary to ensure our security – to install them,” Putin said.