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What Russia's INF suspension meant for arms control
Summary
Within a day of Washington's announcement, Moscow answered with its own suspension of the 1987 missile treaty.
What happened to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty on 2 February 2019, and why did it matter? Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia was suspending its involvement in the treaty and would now start developing new missiles.
He was responding to a move made the previous day. On 1 February 2019, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States was suspending its role in the agreement, citing Russian non-compliance. The treaty dated from 1987 and was made with the USSR, and by extension its successor state, Russia.
What the treaty covered
The agreement banned both countries from possessing or testing nuclear and conventional intermediate-range missiles, as well as their launchers. Suspension by both sides therefore put a long-standing limit on a whole class of weapons in doubt.
A sequence of moves
The two announcements came in close succession. Washington cited Russian non-compliance; Moscow, in turn, framed its step as a reaction to the American decision to withdraw, and tied it to a new missile-development effort. Each side's position rested on the other's action.
The episode was reported at the time as part of the deterioration in Russia–United States relations, sometimes described as a second Cold War. That label has been used by scholars and journalists for heightened tensions between the United States and NATO on one side and Russia or China on the other, though some commentators have discouraged its use.
For Ukraine and its neighbours, the immediate significance was that the arms-control framework between Washington and Moscow was being loosened by both capitals within roughly 24 hours.
