Moscow ‘Closely Looks’ into Reported US Plans to Return Medium-Range Missiles to Europe

• Moscow ‘Closely Looks’ into Reported US Plans to Return Medium-Range Missiles to Europe
  by http://rt.com/  
  The Pentagon is considering scrapping a Cold War-era treaty and deploying nuclear-capable intermediate-range cruise missiles in Europe over Moscow’s alleged treaty violations, AP reported. The Kremlin says it is looking closely into the report.
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  The US administration is mulling deploying medium-range missiles in Europe and Asia that would be potentially capable of destroying military targets within Russian territory, the Associated Press reports. The news agency is citing an unclassified portion of a report written by the office of General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.
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  The report names four potential weapons that “could assist in closing … a capability gap” in case the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which prohibits the possession of 500-5,500 kilometer medium range missiles by the US and Russia, is scrapped.
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  Such measures could imply the deployment of ground-launched cruise missiles systems in Europe or Asia, as well as the deployment of ground-launched intermediate-range ballistic missiles equipped with warheads with adjustable trajectory.
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  Moscow will carefully analyze media reports about the Pentagon’s possible missile deployments in Europe before gauging the news, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.
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  The news recalls to memory the worst pages of the Cold War, when in the 1980s the US deployed Pershing-2 ballistic missiles to Europe and the Soviet Union countered by deploying SS-20 Pioneer ballistic missiles, AP reports.
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