In a brief but concentrated exchange with Scott Ritter, Sputnik noted on July 20, that the former UN weapons inspector and U.S. Marines intelligence agent warned that the new intermediate-range weapons that the U.S. has announced it plans to deploy in Europe, are “an extraordinarily destabilizing development, and Russia has said it will respond.”
The new U.S.-announced systems include the ground-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can be armed with conventional or low- to intermediate-yield nuclear warheads; the SM-6, a long-range surface-to-air-missile system; and as-yet-unnamed hypersonic missile capabilities, “widely speculated to be the Army’s Dark Eagle Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon,” explained Sputnik.
Ritter asserted that the planned deployment of these systems, plus the unpredictability of Russia’s response, would put the world into jeopardy. He also analyzed that while “‘the specifics of a Russian response aren’t known,’ it’s possible that it may include resuming development of the RS-26 Rubezh—a solid-fueled intermediate-range ballistic missile with a nuclear multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) or maneuverable reentry vehicle (MaRV) payload.”
