MOSCOW. Dec 18 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty as the unilateral disarmament of the Soviet Union and said he does not understand why the deal was made in the first place.
The United States' possible withdrawal from the INF Treaty "is getting public attention both in our country and worldwide," Putin said at the meeting of the Defense Ministry collegium on Tuesday.
The 1987 treaty envisaged the scrapping of intermediate- and shorter-range missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers.
"Ground-launched missiles were liquidated. The Soviet Union did not have any others. But the United States had both sea- and air-launched missiles. We did not. So from the Soviet Union's point of view it was an act of unilateral disarmament. God only knows why the Soviet administration agreed to this kind of unilateral disarmament," Putin said.