Kremlin Says Burevestnik Missile Test Should Not Strain Ties with Washington
The Kremlin on Monday said that Russia would be guided by its own national interests after U.S. President Donald Trump said that President Vladimir Putin should end the war in Ukraine rather than testing a nuclear-powered cruise missile.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was nothing in the test of the Burevestnik missile that should strain relations with Washington.
Asked on Air Force One about the test of the 9M730 Burevestnik (Storm Petrel) – dubbed the SSC-X-9 Skyfall by NATO – which Moscow said had flown for 14,000 km (8,700 miles), Trump said the United States did not need to fly so far as it had a nuclear submarine off the coast of Russia.
“They know we have a nuclear submarine, the greatest in the world, right off their shores, so I mean, it doesn’t have to go 8,000 miles,” Trump told reporters, according to an audio file posted by the White House.
“I don’t think its an appropriate thing for Putin to be saying, either, by the way: You ought to get the war ended, the war that should have taken one week is now in … its fourth year, that’s what you ought to do instead of testing missiles,” Trump said.
“They’re not playing games with us and we’re not playing games with them either,” he said. “We test missiles all the time.”
This comes as Putin on Sunday announced that Russia had successfully tested its nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile, a nuclear-capable weapon Moscow says can pierce any defence shield, and will move towards deploying the weapon.
