OREANDA-NEWS. The United States withdraws from the 1987 Russian-American Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) on Friday. Thus, one of the most important agreements will be sent to history, thanks to which Moscow and Washington at one time destroyed almost 2.7 thousand missiles of two classes at once, and also concluded subsequent agreements in the field of disarmament and arms control, which made it possible to strengthen strategic stability and smooth out contradictions in bilateral relations.

At the end of winter, the American side stopped fulfilling its obligations under this agreement. Earlier, Moscow was accused of non-compliance with this agreement several times. According to the US administration, the violation of the treaty was the creation by Russia of the 9M729 missile.

However, the US expert community believes that almost equally the responsibility for the death of the treaty lies both on Russian-American disagreements regarding certain weapons systems, and on the actions of a number of high-ranking officials in Washington. In this regard, the first to be mentioned is the Assistant to the President of the United States for National Security, John Bolton.

As the head of the American Arms Control Association, Daryl Kimball, told the Russian media, the Pentagon expects to conduct a missile test at the end of August, similar to which have so far been prohibited by the INF Treaty. In addition, in November the US Department of Defense plans to test a medium-range intermediate-range ballistic missile. According to the Pentagon, a “completely new rocket”, similar to Pershing 2, will be tested. American Pershing 2 missiles were destroyed by 1991 as part of the INF Treaty.