Russia has accused the U.S. of inventing a reason to tear up the INF Treaty so that it can resume producing the types of weapons it prohibits. Critics in both Moscow and Washington claim the real reason the U.S. wants to withdraw from the treaty is the building tension with China, which is not bound by the treaty, and which is believed to have more than 1,000 missiles of the type the U.S. and Russia are banned from possessing.

Russia has also complained for years that the U.S. damaged the INF Treaty by constructing missile-defence systems in Eastern Europe that upset the post-Cold War balance of power.

Despite the heated rhetoric from Moscow, Mr. Putin is no more of a fan of the INF Treaty than Mr. Trump is. The Kremlin leader has complained for more than a decade that Russia was limited by the pact, while neighbours China and India were not. “Putin and the Russian military have been saying since 2007 that the INF is a bad treaty that was unfair to Russia and should be abandoned,” Pavel Felgenhauer, a Moscow-based military analyst, recently told The Globe and Mail. “Having the Americans abandon it first is good for PR purposes.”

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-how-trump-and-putin-allowed-the-meltdown-of-a-cold-war-nuclear-treaty/