Vladimir Putin warns US of Cold War-style crisis with long-range missile threat

Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the United States that if Washington deployed long-range missiles in Germany then Russia would station similar missiles within striking distance of the West.

The US has said it will start deploying long-range missiles in Germany from 2026 in preparation for a longer-term deployment that will include SM-6, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and developmental hypersonic weapons.

In a speech to sailors from Russia, China, Algeria, and India to mark Russian Navy day in the former imperial capital of St Petersburg, Putin warned the US it risked triggering a Cold War-style missile crisis.

“The flight time to targets on our territory of such missiles, which in the future may be equipped with nuclear warheads, will be about 10 minutes,” Putin said.

“We will take mirror measures to deploy, taking into account the actions of the US, its satellites in Europe, and in other regions of the world.”

Putin, who sent his army into Ukraine in 2022, casts the war as part of a historic struggle with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Soviet Union fell in 1991 by encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence.

Ukraine and the West say Putin is engaged in an imperial-style land grab. They have vowed to defeat Russia, which currently controls about 18% of Ukraine, including Crimea, and parts of four regions in eastern Ukraine.

Russia says the lands, once part of the Russian empire, are now again part of Russia and that they will never be given back.

Russian and US diplomats say their relations are worse even than during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and both Moscow and Washington have urged de-escalation while both have made steps towards escalation.

Putin said the US was stoking tensions and had transferred Typhon missile systems to Denmark and the Philippines, comparing the US plans to the Nato decision to deploy Pershing II launchers in Western Europe in 1979.

The Soviet leadership, including then General-Secretary Yuri Andropov, feared Pershing II deployments were part of an elaborate US-led plan to decapitate the Soviet Union by taking out its political and military leadership.

“This situation is reminiscent of the events of the Cold War related to the deployment of American medium–range Pershing missiles in Europe,” Putin said.

The Pershing II, designed to deliver a variable yield nuclear warhead, was deployed to West Germany in 1983.

In 1983, the ailing Andropov and the KGB interpreted a series of US moves including the Pershing II deployment and a major Nato exercise as signs the West was about to launch a pre-emptive strike on the Soviet Union.

Putin repeated an earlier warning that Russia could resume production of intermediate and shorter range nuclear-capable missiles and then consider where to deploy them after the US brought similar missiles to Europe and Asia.