U.S. sees treaty breach as Russia deploys missile

WASHINGTON -- Russia has secretly deployed a new cruise missile that U.S. officials say violates an arms control treaty, posing a test for President Donald Trump as his administration faces questions over its ties to Russia.

The Russian missile deployment also comes as the Trump administration struggles to fill key policy positions at the State Department and the Pentagon -- and to settle on a permanent replacement for Michael Flynn, the national security adviser who resigned late Monday.

The ground-launched cruise missile at the center of U.S. concerns is one that President Barack Obama's administration said in 2014 had been tested in violation of a 1987 treaty that bans U.S. and Russian intermediate-range missiles based on land.

The Obama administration had sought to persuade the Russians to stop the violation while the missile was still in the test phase.

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Instead the Russians have moved ahead with the system, deploying a fully operational missile.

Administration officials said the Russians now have two battalions of the prohibited cruise missiles. One is still at Russia's missile test site at Kapustin Yar in southern Russia near Volgograd.

The other was shifted in December from that test site to an operational base elsewhere in the country, according to a senior official who did not provide further details and requested anonymity to discuss recent intelligence reports about the missile.

U.S. officials had called the cruise missile the SSC-X-8. But the "X" has been removed from intelligence reports, indicating that U.S. intelligence officials consider the missile to be operational and no longer a system in development.

The missile program has been a major concern for the Pentagon, which has developed options for how to respond to it, including deploying additional missile defenses in Europe or developing air-based or sea-based cruise missiles.

The deployment of the system could also substantially increase the military threat to NATO nations, depending on where the highly mobile system is based and how many more batteries are deployed in the future.

James Mattis, the U.S. defense secretary, is to meet today with allied defense ministers in Brussels.

Before Gen. Philip Breedlove left his post last year as the NATO commander and retired from the military, he warned that deployment of the cruise missile would be a militarily significant development that "can't go unanswered."

Each missile battalion is believed to have four mobile launchers with about half a dozen nuclear-tipped missiles allocated to each of the launchers. The mobile launcher for the cruise missile, however, closely resembles the mobile launcher used for the Iskander, a nuclear-tipped short-range system that is permitted under treaties.

"This will make location and verification really tough," Breedlove said in an interview.

While senior Trump administration officials have not said where the new unit is based, there has been speculation in news reports that a missile system with similar characteristics is in central Russia.

The Trump administration is in the beginning stages of reviewing nuclear policy and has not said how it plans to respond.

"We do not comment on intelligence matters," said Mark Toner, the acting State Department spokesman. "We have made very clear our concerns about Russia's violation, the risks it poses to European and Asian security, and our strong interest in returning Russia to compliance with the treaty."

A Section on 02/15/2017