Russia has officially responded to the planned US withdrawal from a nuclear-weapons treaty between the two countries in the latest escalation between Moscow and Washington over the controversial plans of US President Donald Trump.
The Russian deputy foreign minister said that the US withdrawal announced by Trump from the nuclear treaty signed during the Cold War "is a dangerous step."
"This will be a very serious step and I am sure that the international community will not understand it and will raise serious condemnations," Sergei Ryabkov told Russian news agency TASS.
The US president said Washington would withdraw from its "medium-range nuclear weapons treaty" with Moscow in 1987, accusing Russia of "violating the treaty" for many years.
Earlier, Russia said that the United States was "dreaming" of being the world's only dominant power by its decision to withdraw from the treaty.
"The main motive is to dream of a unipolar world," said the source, quoted by state news agency RIA Novosti.
The source confirmed that Washington "approached this step over many years through the destruction of the foundations of the agreement in deliberate and deliberate steps."
"This decision falls within the framework of the American policy to withdraw from these international legal agreements that place equal responsibilities on them and on their partners and undermines their own concept of their exceptional status," the Russian news agency reported.
The treaty, which eliminated a full range of missiles ranging from 500 to 5,000 km, put an end to a crisis in the 1980s over the Soviet Union's deployment of the SS-20 nuclear missiles, which were aimed at Western European capitals.
In what seems to be a rift from the era of his predecessor Barack Obama, Trump announced his earlier withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, as well as the Paris Climate Treaty signed by 195 countries in the same year.
But the sensitivity of Trump's nuclear treaty necessarily imposes an important question: What next?
The treaty, or so it is assumed, forced the parties to withdraw more than 2,600 conventional, short- and medium-range nuclear missiles.
The withdrawal does not necessarily mean a nuclear war between the East and the West, but Trump's decision raised fears of a frantic race to develop and produce nuclear weapons in both camps, as well as the allies of Washington and Moscow.
A withdrawal from the treaty could also have huge implications for US defense policy in Asia, particularly toward China, its main strategic rival with which Trump is fighting a trade war.
