OREANDA-NEWS. This year, NATO intends to respond to Russia's deployment of Iskander systems with 9M729 missiles (NATO's SSC-8 classification). This was stated by Alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in an interview with the News Agency on Monday. "As for the SSC-8, we will work on anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic systems, on conventional weapons, on increasing the state of alert and accelerating the alert time", he said. Stoltenberg said that the NATO defense ministers have already agreed on the framework conditions for such work.

“By placing SSC-8 cruise missiles, Russia violated the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate and Shorter-Range Missiles”, the Secretary General claimed. “This is part of the Russian strategy - significant investments in new, modern facilities, including new modern nuclear weapons”. According to him, the response of the alliance will be defensive and proportionate.

At the same time, Stoltenberg again assured that NATO did not intend to deploy new ground-based nuclear missiles in Europe. He noted the need to strengthen arms control.

In September, it became known that Russian President Vladimir Putin sent the leaders of several countries, including NATO members, a proposal to introduce a moratorium on the deployment of INF arms in Europe and other regions. Such messages were also sent to a number of non-NATO states, including China. The only one of the leaders of the NATO countries who responded to Putin’s proposal was French President Emmanuel Macron.