Russia has, in recent months, used a cruise missile against Ukraine that led US President Donald Trump to withdraw from a key nuclear arms control pact with Moscow back in 2019.The 9M729 missile, reportedly developed in secret, prompted the United States to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty during Donald Trump’s first term.
Signed in 1987 by-then US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev near the end of the Cold War, the INF Treaty banned all ground-launched missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. The agreement aimed to reduce the concentration of potentially nuclear-armed weapons deployed by Russia and Nato across Europe, as cited by the Kyiv Independent.Russia has launched the 9M729 missile at Ukraine 23 times since August and had previously fired it twice in 2022, a senior Ukrainian official said, as cited by Reuters. What is the 9M729? Washington has accused Russia of violating the treaty by developing the 9M729 missile, which it says can travel well beyond the 500 km (310 miles) limit, a claim that Moscow has denied.According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Missile Threat project, the missile is capable of carrying either a nuclear or conventional warhead and has a range of up to 2,500 km. One such missile fired by Russia on October 5 flew more than 1,200 km before striking Ukraine, a military official said, as cited by Reuters. “Russia’s use of the INF-banned 9M729 against Ukraine in the past months demonstrates (President Vladimir) Putin’s disrespect to the United States and President Trump’s diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said in written remarks to Reuters. Images from the aftermath of a Russian strike on October 5 showed debris from a residential building hit in the Ukrainian village of Lapaiivka, where four people were killed. The village lies more than 600 km from Russian territory, and the fragments included two missile parts, one of them a tube with wiring, both marked 9M729, as reported by Reuters. Meanwhile, Russia has tested its nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile last week and announced on Wednesday that it had also conducted a test of its nuclear-powered Poseidon torpedo.Trump on Friday also reaffirmed plans to resume nuclear testing, days after announcing that he had instructed the Pentagon to restart weapons tests.
