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Hello and welcome to World Today.
I'm Zhao Ying.
Russia has announced it will stop abiding by the terms of a defunct nuclear missile treaty with the United States.
The 1987 pact, also known as the INF Treaty,
banned ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.
It was once held as a milestone in Cold War arms control.
The United States withdrew from the treaty in 2019 during President Donald Trump's first term,
citing Russian violations.
Moscow denied those allegations and said it would keep its own moratorium,
a position it has now reversed.
In a statement,
the Russian foreign ministry said Moscow no longer considers itself bound by those limits,
noting that the U.S. is moving to deploy intermediate-range missiles in Europe and Asia.
The announcement came just days after Trump ordered the repositioning of two nuclear submarines in response to what he called threatening comments from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev,
now deputy chair of Russia's Security Council.
So is this the beginning of a new nuclear arms race?
What happens when nuclear posturing, once considered a taboo topic,