Russian leader continues to
issue warnings saying he doesn't want a missile crisis but ready to act if
provoked by US.
Russia's military
is ready for its own "Cuban Missile Crisis" if the United States is
foolish enough to want one and Moscow has the edge when it comes to a
nuclear-first attack, President
Vladimir Putin said.
Putin's comments, made to
Russian media late on Wednesday, follow his warning that Moscow would match any
US move to deploy new missiles closer to Russia by targeting
Western capitals with faster missiles of its own.
The Cuban
Missile Crisis erupted in 1962 when Moscow responded to a US missile
deployment in Turkey by sending ballistic missiles to Cuba - 150km from the US
- sparking a standoff that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
More than five decades on,
tensions are rising again over Russian fears the US might deploy
intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe as a landmark Cold War-era arms
control treaty unravels.
Relations between Moscow and
Washington were strained, Putin said, but tensions were not yet comparable to
those of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
"They [tensions] are not
a reason to ratchet up confrontation to the levels of the Cuban Missile Crisis
in the 1960s. In any case, that's not what we want," said Russia's
president. "[But] if someone wants that, well OK they are welcome."
Putin said Russia could deploy
hypersonic missiles on ships and submarines, which could lurk outside US
territorial waters if Washington moved to deploy new nuclear weapons in Europe.
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"[We're talking about]
naval delivery vehicles: submarines or surface ships. And we can put them,
given the speed and range [of our missiles] ... in neutral waters. Plus they
are not stationary, they move and they will have to find them," Putin
said, according to a Kremlin transcript.
"You work it out. Mach
nine [the speed of the missiles] and over 1,000km [their range]."
Treaty violations
The US State Department
dismissed Putin's earlier warning as propaganda, saying it was designed to
divert attention from what Washington alleges was Moscow's violations of
the Intermediate-range
Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
The pact, which banned Russia
and the US from stationing short- and intermediate-range, land-based missiles
in Europe, is in its death throes, raising the prospect of a new arms race.
Putin has said he does not
want an arms race with the US but he would have no choice but to act if Washington
deployed new missiles in Europe, some of which he says would be able to attack
Moscow within 10-12 minutes.
Putin said his naval response
to such a move would mean Russia could attack the US faster than US missiles
could hit Moscow.
"It [the calculation]
would not be in their favour, at least as things stand today. That's for
sure," said Putin.
Bark bigger than bite?
Despite Putin's boasts of
military prowess, Russia's armed forces are not as capable or modern as
its annual Red Square military parades suggest, Western diplomats and military
experts say.
Putin has long projected an
image of military might to strengthen his and Moscow's image at home and
abroad, but Russia is overhauling its military far more slowly than China,
observers say.
"Moscow's problems mean
its ability to project conventional military force - something it is doing in
Syria and has done in Ukraine - is not as great as the Kremlin would have the
world believe," said one Western official with knowledge of Russia's
military.
Moscow has a shortage of
modern factories and skilled labour, and does not have the available financial
resources needed to reverse decades of post-Soviet decline as quickly as it
wants, Russian officials and military analysts say.
Andrei Frolov, editor-in-chief
of Russian magazine Arms Exports, said Russia had successfully produced
prototypes of new weapons systems, but struggled to move to serial production.
In his speech on Wednesday,
Putin did not mention the navy's problems.
The programme to build Russia's
most advanced stealth frigate, the Admiral Gorshkov-class, has been paralysed
by sanctions. Russia hopes to add 14 more such ships to its navy but has no
engines for 12 of those vessels.
The air force has also been an
issue. Moscow had initially been expected to procure about 150 of the
fifth-generation Su-57 stealth fighter jet, but defence industry and government
officials say they now expect just one plane, the first serially produced
aircraft, this year. A further 14 may follow.
Analysts say the costs of
mass-producing the new fighter jet are simply beyond Russia. Plans for Russia's
super tank have also foundered.
Rearmament problems
That does not mean Russia's
military is not a force to be reckoned with. Some of its hardware, such as its
S-400 air defence systems, are world class.
Putin has also spent heavily
on missile technology, unveiling new hypersonic systems.
But Russia's air force and
army, like its navy, are experiencing rearmament problems. Its new stealth
fighter first took to the air more than nine years ago and a super tank made
its Red Square debut almost four years ago. Neither is due to be deployed in
large numbers soon, government officials say.
Richard Connolly, a Russia
specialist at the University of Birmingham, said Moscow's military might should
not be underestimated, but Russia was still suffering from the legacy of an
economic crisis that followed the Soviet Union's collapse, hitting state arms
orders and the military-industrial complex.
"It's not as easy as
simply saying, 'Right, we've got the money so go and make it happen', because a
lot of the shipyards have rusted," Connolly said.
SOURCE: REUTERS NEWS AGENCY
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