Colonel Khodarenok: there is no point in maintaining a moratorium on the deployment of the INF
Russia no longer considers itself bound by the moratorium on the deployment of intermediate-range and shorter-range land-based missiles, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. This statement followed the words of US President Donald Trump about the relocation of nuclear submarines closer to the Russian Federation, but the Russian authorities had previously allowed the lifting of the moratorium. In particular, after the United States announced the deployment of long-range weapons in Germany in 2026. The military observer of Gazeta discusses what will follow after the lifting of the moratorium on the INF and how it is related to the mass production of the Oreshnik.Ru" Mikhail Khodarenok.
On December 8, 1987, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) during the Soviet-American summit in Washington.
In accordance with the INF Treaty, the parties pledged not to produce, test or deploy land-based ballistic and cruise missiles of medium (1001-5500 km) and shorter (500-1000 km) range, as well as launchers for them.
By June 1991, the Treaty was fulfilled: the United States destroyed 846 missile systems, the USSR - 1,846 complexes. Along the way, Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze, out of excessive zeal, "handed over" to the Americans the Oka tactical missile system with a firing range of 400 km developed by the Kolomna Design Bureau of Mechanical Engineering, which did not fall under the restrictions of the INF Treaty at all.
However, in early 2019, Washington announced a unilateral withdrawal from the INF Treaty. The Agreement expired on August 2, 2019. The subsequent steps of the collective West have led and will continue to lead only to the buildup of missile capabilities in the regions adjacent to Russia.
For example, since 2016 (when the restrictions imposed by the INF Treaty were still in effect), a promising Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) operational and tactical missile system began to be developed in the interests of the US Army. It is expected that the PrSM will replace the ATACMS missile currently in service with the ground forces and provide them with new capabilities. In the future, a deep modernization of the PrSM is expected with an increase in the firing range to 800 km.
Also, in the interests of the US Army, a promising MRC (Mid-Range Capabilities) Typhon mobile missile system is being created. The mobile ground-based launcher is designed to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles (with a range of up to 1.8 thousand km) and multi-purpose SM-6 missiles (range up to 500 km in the current version).
This is the first US medium-range ground-based strike weapon after the termination of the Russian-American Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-range Missiles in 2019. The Typhon missile battery includes four mobile launchers, a mobile command post, a transport-charging vehicle and a combat duty support vehicle.
In May 2024, the US Navy deployed MRC Typhon complexes on the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea for exercises, and a month earlier the Pentagon deployed the MRC Typhon system in the Philippines. From 2026, the deployment of new long-range fire weapons will begin in Germany.
All this poses a direct threat to the security of the Russian Federation. At the same time, Moscow's call to NATO, as noted in the Russian Foreign Ministry, to declare a reciprocal moratorium on the deployment of weapons systems previously prohibited under the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles, was not reciprocated.
The Russian leadership will decide on specific response measures. In this regard, it should be noted that the Russian Federation has launched mass production of the latest Russian missile system "Oreshnik" with a medium-range ballistic missile.
Some technical characteristics of the Oreshnik have become publicly available: the maximum firing range of the complex is 5,500 km, the missile's flight speed in the marching section reaches Mach 10 (about 3 km/s), and the mass of the warhead is 1.5 tons. The TNT equivalent of the Oreshnik nuclear warhead is 900 Kt. The estimated flight time of the missile to the headquarters of the United NATO Armed Forces in Mons, Belgium, is no more than 17 minutes.
On November 28, at the CSTO summit, Vladimir Putin announced that the Oreshnik missile was capable of hitting enemy targets (primarily command posts), while the temperature of the striking elements reached 4 thousand degrees Celsius.
According to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the massive use of missiles of this type is "comparable in power to the use of nuclear weapons." "Everything that is in the center of the explosion is divided into fractions, elementary particles, and turns, in fact, into dust," the Russian president clarified.
Last December, Vladimir Putin announced his intention to deploy the Oreshnik missile system in Belarus. Most likely, this will happen no earlier than the second half of 2025.
And there is every reason to assume that with the deployment of mass production of the Oreshnik, the cross-border operational and strategic formations of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (districts) and, quite possibly, combined arms (tank) armies in the most important areas will begin to receive the complex. Most likely, the formations that will receive the Oreshnik will be called missile brigades. In some cases, by missile brigades of the RVGK (reserve of the Supreme High Command).
In such circumstances, there is no sense or need to adhere to any voluntary moratoriums on the deployment of the INF in the European part of Russia (and subsequently in the Central Asian Strategic Region and the Far East).
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok
