"Washington gives knowingly false information about its 'compliance' with the INF treaty. For years, the United States has been simply ignoring Russia's deep concerns that are directly related to the implementation of the INF treaty by the US side," the statement said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry is concerned over the use of unconfirmed information about Russia's compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by the United States as a pretext for possible retaliatory measures.
"The United States have launched a public campaign on absolutely unfounded accusations of Russia of the NPT violations. [According to the campaign,] our country allegedly produces and tests ground-based cruise missiles prohibited under the Treaty. No arguments that could back the allegations against us have been voiced. The 'information' handed by the US side that allegedly allows to clarify what it is all about, in fact is just fragmentary signals, which do not show on what exactly US unsustainable concerns are based," the statement said.
Moreover, the US plans deploy missile defense systems capable of launching Tomahawk missiles in Poland are a gross violation of the treaty, the statement added.
"It is an indisputable fact that this is a gross violation of the INF treaty," the statement said, commenting on US plans to deploy in Poland systems able to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles, similar to the MK 41 Vertical Launching Systems.
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan signed the INF Treaty in 1987. Russia is a party to the treaty as the Soviet Union's successor state. Within the framework of the deal, the two sides agreed to destroy and not to further develop ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles that have a range of 500-5,500 kilometers (310-3,410 miles). Since then, both Moscow and Washington have repeatedly accused each other of violations of the bilateral agreement.
