Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned his country will build nuclear-tipped missiles if the U.S. withdraws from a Cold War-era arms pact that bans such development.
His remarks on Wednesday came a day after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Moscow to stop violating the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty and come into compliance within 60 days.
But Putin said the accusation is a pretext for the U.S. to leave the agreement.
"Development of these missiles has been approved in the Pentagon's budget already, but they only announced their withdrawal (from INF treaty) afterwards. Their next step was to see who they could put the blame on, and the simplest explanation that Western people are used to is 'this is Russia's fault'. That is not true. We are against the destruction of this agreement. But if it happens we will react accordingly."
