Moscow raps US ‘disinformation campaign’ against Russian missile work

Moscow has slammed the Pentagon for unleashing a “disinformation campaign” against the Russian missile defense program, saying the US is attempting to “discredit” Russia and justify its military buildup around the world.

The Russian Foreign Ministry released a statement on Friday in response to an article by an unnamed Pentagon official published on the US Department of Defense’s website, which claimed Russia’s missile program — along with that of China — is becoming an element of great power competition.

“We take this post as part of a targeted disinformation campaign seeking to discredit Russia. Clearly, there are unscrupulous attempts to ascribe to us some aggressive and dangerous plans, this time in missile defense,” said the statement carried by the TASS news agency.

“Unmistakably, this is about the United States trying to justify its own large-scale and expensive programs for creating and modernizing weapons and plans to build up its military presence around the world,” the ministry added.

The Pentagon, it said, was using the great power rivalry rhetoric to justify its military measures, which are in fact meant to achieve military superiority and undermine other states’ national security.

It criticized the US for stationing missile systems around the world and planning to deploy such weapons to the outer space as well.

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“In the context of missile defense at the doctrine level, the Pentagon has left open the possibility of delivering preventive ‘disarming’ strikes against other countries in order to destroy missiles before they are launched. Moreover, the United States claims these are defensive actions,” the Russian Foreign Ministry added.

The ministry warned that “changing the strategic balance of forces in the sphere of offensive weapons” would pose further risks to global security and create “dangerous conditions for stepping up a nuclear and space arms race.”

It said Moscow has put forward numerous initiatives designed to “establish cooperation in the anti-missile sphere” since the termination in June 2002, when the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) that it had signed in 1972 with the then Soviet Union.

The arms control treaty was meant to restrict the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against ballistic missile-delivered nuclear weapons.

“Washington and its allies have refused to move in this direction and are reluctant to take Russia’s interests into account. So, the desire to shift onto us the responsibility for the situation created by the United States is at least unseemly,” the ministry said.

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