Putin warns Russia is prepared to go on the weapons offensive

The Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, last week issued what has become one of his customary trademark warnings by announcing that Russia will start to build offensive weapons to counter American global aggression.

Moscow and Washington are currently in discussions regarding a successor to the landmark Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty which was signed between the United States and the now defunct Soviet Union in 1991, and which expired last December.

Demonstrating once again that it is he, and not President Dmitri Medvedev, who is the real boss in the Kremlin, Mr Putin warned the US government that its development of a sea and land based missile defence system was detrimental to the signing of an arms deal between Russia and America to replace Start 1. He said: “The problem is that our American partners are developing missiles, and we are not.”

Read more