Russia on Monday announced that it was withdrawing from its self-imposed moratorium on the deployment of intermediate-range missiles. The move comes after US President Donald Trump ordered the repositioning of two American nuclear submarines closer to Russian shores, escalating tensions between the two Cold War-era rivals.

'Russia does not consider itself anymore bound by self-restrictions on deploying intermediate- and shorter-range missiles (INF) as conditions to preserve this moratorium have disappeared,' the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, signed between the USSR and the US in 1987, did not allow the deployment of missile launchers, ground-launched ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 km. The US withdrew from the agreement in 2019.

In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry said its repeated warnings on the matter have been ignored and the situation is moving toward the actual deployment of US-made intermediate- and shorter-range ground-based missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Because of this, it said, "...The Russian Foreign Ministry has to attest to the disappearance of any conditions for the preservation of a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of similar arms and is authorised to state that the Russian Federation does not consider itself anymore bound by relevant self-restrictions approved earlier."