Russia will respond to any new deployment of missiles by US – Lavrov

Russia will not hesitate to respond to any new deployment of missiles by the United States, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

“If practical steps are taken to create and deploy [missiles], we will have a mirror reaction, but we will not be the first,” Lavrov said in Rome. He made the statement at a news conference with his Italian counterpart, Luigi Di Maio on the sidelines of an international conference, the Mediterranean Dialogues.

Russia has proposed a moratorium on the deployment of short and intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe after the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) banning such a move formally ended in August.