"The United States arrogantly ignored warnings from Russia and China," Russia's veteran foreign minister told state media.

Russia will scrap a moratorium on the deployment of intermediate and shorter range nuclear-capable missiles because the United States has deployed such weapons in various regions around the world, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Sunday.

The INF Treaty required both US and Russia to eliminate all nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has announced that Russia will lift its moratorium on deploying medium- and short-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Source: Radio Liberty, citing Lavrov in an interview with Kremlin-aligned Russian news agency RIA Novosti Details: Lavrov attributed this decision to the deployment of similar weapons by the United States.

Russia no longer considers itself bound by its unilateral moratorium on the deployment of intermediate and shorter-range nuclear-capable missiles, clearing the way for Moscow to deploy the weapons across Europe and Asia.

Ukraine said it had struck a storage and maintenance depot for long-range Shahed drones in Russia’s Oryol region, adding that this had ‘significantly reduced’ Russia’s ability to launch mass drone attacks on Ukraine.