MOSCOW (AP) – Russia’s missile forces chief said Monday that Russian industries could quickly resume production of medium range missiles if Moscow decided to walk out of a Soviet-era treaty with the United States banning their deployment. “It is not difficult to restore their production,” Strategic Missile Forces Commander Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov said a news conference. Russian military officials have said Moscow could pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, negotiated between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1987. They said they decision would depend on whether the United States goes ahead with its plan to deploy missile defense components in Poland and the Czech Republic – plans that have demonstrably upset Moscow. President Vladimir Putin has said he does not trust U.S. claims that the deployment of missile defense components in Europe was intended to counter missile threats from Iran and warned that Russia would take retaliatory actions.
