INF Treaty exit? Putin says he’s ready to escalate to Cuban Missile Crisis levels

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Russian President Vladimir Putin told members of the Russian media on Wednesday that if the US exits the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty and deploys nuclear weapons to Europe, Russia will follow suit—by placing nuclear weapons off the coast of the US. The comments came on the heels of an announcement by Putin that a nuclear powered, nuclear-armed unmanned submersible vehicle (essentially a giant nuclear torpedo) was nearly ready for deployment. The Russian president said the first submarine equipped to carry it would be ready as soon as this spring.
'If they create threats to us, they should be aware of the potential consequences, so that they will not accuse us of unnecessary aggressiveness or whatever later,' Putin said in comments following his February 20 address to Russia's Federal Assembly. 'They have announced their decision,' he said, referencing President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the INF treaty. 'We know what can follow it. We tell them, 'Do the maths. Can you count? So, do it before making any decisions that would create additional threats to you.''
To make that point clearer, Putin gave some of the numbers for 'the maths.' First, he would put nuclear-armed missiles on submarines or surface ships. 'At a speed of Mach 9, these missiles can strike a target more than 1,000 km away,' he explained. 'Under the Law of the Sea, the exclusive economic zone is defined at some 400 km or 200 miles. Do the maths. The distance of 1,000 kilometers at Mach 9. How soon, in how many minutes, can these weapons reach their targets? Just compare, the flight time to Moscow is between 10 and 12 minutes. How long would it take to reach the decision-making centers that are creating threats to us? The calculation is not in their favor, at least, not today.'
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