Putin threatens US arms race with new missiles declaration
President says Russia has new line of nuclear-capable weapons that can breach US defences
Vladimir Putin has announced that Russia has developed and is testing a new line of strategic nuclear-capable weapons that would be able to outmanoeuvre US defences, in a possible signal of a new arms race between Moscow and the west.
Speaking in a nationally televised address to the country’s political elite weeks before the presidential election, Putin showed video and animations of ICBMs, nuclear-powered cruise missiles, underwater drones and other weapons that he said Russia had developed as a result of the US pulling out of the 1972 anti-ballistic missile signed with the Soviet Union.
