Trump Cancelled Nuclear Weapons Control Deal With Russia After Putin Used Intermediate Range Missile On Ukraine

Reports indicate that Russia has started deploying a particularly crucial cruise missile during its strikes against Ukraine, namely the 9M729—a weapon whose clandestine creation served as the primary trigger for the United States’ exit from a key international agreement on nuclear arms limitations.

As reported by Reuters, Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrii Sybiha, has verified this introduction into action, explaining that the projectile, capable of being fitted with either a non-nuclear or atomic payload, has been launched toward Ukrainian territory on 23 separate occasions beginning in August. This represents the initial verified instance of the land-based 9M729 being employed in actual warfare.

The 9M729 projectile lay at the heart of a substantial disagreement over arms limitation policies. The U.S. government maintained that the weapon’s actual operational distance contravened the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Accord, an agreement that prohibited terrestrial-launched ballistic systems with distances spanning from 500 km to 5,500 km.

Pointing to Moscow’s failure to adhere to the terms, former American leader Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the INF Accord in 2019. Although Russia rejected any claims of exceeding the distance limits, defense experts assert that the missile is able to travel considerably beyond the 500 km threshold. An intelligence contact within the Ukrainian armed forces observed that a single 9M729 launched on October 5 covered more than 1,200 km before reaching its designated strike location. Certain projections assess the projectile’s maximum potential distance as reaching as high as 2,500 km.

The Ukrainian capital regards the employment of this missile as an outright provocation, as Sybiha remarked that it shows President Putin’s “disrespect to the United States and President Trump’s diplomatic efforts.”

Experts in Western defense circles observe that the introduction of the 9M729—a system initially engineered to strike objectives throughout the European continent—enhances Moscow’s options for conducting extended-distance assaults on Ukrainian positions. This development occurs in parallel with various other lately intensified actions, such as Russia’s trials of its atomic-fueled Burevestnik cruise projectile and the Poseidon atomic-propelled underwater drone.

As a countermeasure, Ukraine persists in urging the U.S. capital to provide it with extended-reach Tomahawk cruise missiles (which escaped prohibition under the INF accord owing to their deployment from maritime platforms), an initiative that Moscow has branded as a perilously provocative step.

A Gentle Reminder: Every obstacle is a stepping stone, every morning; a chance to go again, and those little steps take you closer to your dream.

Nnamdi Okoli