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Vladimir Putin Says 40 New Missiles Will Be Added to Russian Nuclear Arsenal As Putin Talks More Missiles and Might, Cost Tells Another Story
(about 5 hours later)
KUBINKA, Russia — President Vladimir V. Putin said on Tuesday that Russia would add more than 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles to its nuclear arsenal this year, prompting Secretary of State John Kerry to express his concern and NATO’s chief to accuse Moscow of dangerous “saber rattling.” KUBINKA, Russia — They call it “Russia’s military Disneyland,” and the underlying idea that Russia will soon field a high-tech, modernized army was indeed part fantasy. But the bristling array of armaments underlined how military competition has overtaken diplomacy in East-West relations.
Mr. Putin made his announcement a day after Russian officials denounced a plan by the United States to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO member states on Russia’s border as the most aggressive act by Washington since the Cold War. In a sprawling park 30 miles outside Moscow, President Vladimir V. Putin welcomed the country’s first high-tech military exposition on Tuesday, announcing in his opening remarks that Russia would add 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles to its nuclear stockpile this year.
“More than 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles able to overcome even the most technically advanced antimissile defense systems will be added to the makeup of the nuclear arsenal this year,” Mr. Putin, flanked by army officers, said in a speech at an arms fair west of Moscow. Just days earlier, it was disclosed that the United States is considering stationing enough heavy weaponry in the neighboring Baltic States and Poland to rapidly deploy some 5,000 troops to face any Russian threat.
Intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, have a minimum range of more than 3,400 miles. Mr. Putin gave no more details of which particular missiles were being added to the nuclear arsenal. Analysts see the increasing emphasis on military matters as a sign that the changes wrought by the Ukraine crisis are cementing a more confrontational relationship between Russia and the West, something of a new arms race. Yet as races go, it is a slow-motion contest, with little appetite to invest in the kind of Cold War arsenals that had assured mutual destruction.
He has repeatedly urged Russia to maintain its nuclear deterrence to counter what he sees as growing security threats. For one thing, Russia, given its economic problems, probably cannot afford even the weapons that Mr. Putin has pledged to deliver to Russia by 2020. Six months ago, he said the country would add 50 ballistic missiles to its nuclear arsenal this year, and at least one senior Russian military official has indicated publicly that the Kremlin’s appetite exceeds its wallet.
Such comments have helped whip up anti-Western sentiment and rally support behind Mr. Putin, but have caused disquiet in the West, particularly countries on or near Russia’s borders that were under Soviet domination during the Cold War. For another, issues of common concern, like the threat from Islamic extremism and Iran’s nuclear program, have been pushing the two sides to work together. But the language of arms is slowly but surely overshadowing the language of diplomacy and mutual respect.
Responding quickly to Mr. Putin’s remarks, Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general, accused Russia of unwarranted “saber rattling,” calling it “destabilizing and dangerous.” “Everybody should understand that we are living in a totally different world than two years ago,” said Alexander M. Golts, an independent Russian military analyst.
At a news briefing in Brussels, Mr. Stoltenberg said such rhetoric from Moscow explained the Western alliance’s increased preparedness on the part of its forces to defend its member states closest to Russia. “In that world, which we lost, it was possible to organize your security with treaties, with mutual-trust measures, “ he said. “Now we have come to an absolutely different situation where the general way to ensure your security is military deterrence.”
“This nuclear saber rattling of Russia is unjustified,” Mr. Stoltenberg said. “This is something we are addressing, and it’s also one of the reasons we are now increasing the readiness and preparedness of our forces.” On the sidelines of the military exposition on Tuesday, Russian officers and academics held a series of seminars, including one focused on threats to the country’s security. There was the usual litany of accusations that NATO was gradually trying to strangle Russia, either through force of arms or by fomenting domestic revolutions like Ukraine.
“We are responding by making sure that NATO also in the future is an alliance which provides deterrence and protection for all allies against any threat,” he added. Russia feels alone and besieged, a sentiment that continuously provides fresh inspiration to reform a military once better known for the drunk, ill-equipped conscripts who fared so badly during two wars in Chechnya in the 1990s.
Mr. Kerry, speaking to reporters in Washington, said, “It does concern me.” “The Russian Army is returning to normal combat activities and training,” said Igor Korotchenko, the editor in chief of National Defense, a monthly Russian magazine. “We are doing exactly what our Western partners are doing.”
“Nobody should hear that kind of announcement from the leader of a powerful country and not be concerned about what the implications are,” he added. He denied that Russia had any plans to invade Ukraine, much less dust off its Soviet-era plans to invade Europe, but said the United States was using the crisis to beef up its presence and its influence.
Tension has flared anew between Russia and Western powers over Moscow’s role in the Ukraine crisis, in which pro-Russian separatist forces have seized a large part of the country’s east after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in early 2014. “We can feel the military tension,” he said.
The European Union and United States imposed economic sanctions on Russia. But Washington and Moscow are still bound by a 2010 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that caps deployed strategic nuclear warheads at 1,550 each and limits the numbers of strategic nuclear missile launchers to 800 by 2018. From a Western point of view, Russia shattered the postwar, and certainly post-Cold War, European order by seizing Crimea and destabilizing Ukraine with a not-terribly-covert military program. That left former Soviet client states next door feeling vulnerable.
The fair that opened on Tuesday to exhibit Russian arms and military equipment was the latest example of Moscow showcasing its modernized armed forces. Russia, which had long given up on military exercises, then started sending long-range bombers and fighter aircraft on patrol along the edges of European or American airspace. The West, and the United States in particular, felt the aggressive attitude warranted a military response. Hence, a new program of maneuvers and talk of deploying tanks and other heavy equipment.
But lavish military spending is burdening Russia’s national budget at a time when the economy is sliding toward recession, hammered by low oil prices and Western sanctions. “Russia has been making aggressive statements, insisting that it lives in a world of mutual military deterrence, while thinking that the West will not pay attention,” Mr. Golts said.
The Kremlin portrays spending on the Russian arms sector as a driver of economic growth, but Mr. Putin’s critics say it is excessive and comes at the expense of social needs. But the West paid attention, he said, and Russia is not ready. It is one thing to use a force of up to 100,000 well-trained, well-booted soldiers to seize Crimea or even destabilize a neighbor, but it is a very different matter to take on NATO, he noted.
Russia, lacking both the manpower and the weapons systems, will not be ready to do so any time soon, which is why Mr. Putin resorts to asymmetrical responses like nuclear weapons, analysts said.
The war with Ukraine severed cooperation with some critical defense industries there, while Western sanctions cut off some technology used in military applications, like microchips.
Then there are deepening questions of just how much Russia can afford, even if it is one of the world’s largest arms exporters, with some $16 billion in sales last year.
The steep drops in the price of oil and the value of the ruble mean Russia is facing a recession this year, although recent figures suggest it will not be as bad as originally anticipated.
Mr. Putin has said he will maintain both his $400 billion, decade-long military modernization campaign and the social safety net that he promised when he started his third term as president in 2012. At times, he said the pace might slow, but he has never publicly entertained the idea of cutting back.
The president repeated part of that pledge on Tuesday at the military fair, stating that at least 70 percent of all weapons should be modernized by 2020. But there are signs that the money might run out first.
The military budget jumped 32 percent last fall, only to be cut back by over 4 percent this year, according to Russian media reports.
Yuriy Borisov, a deputy defense minister, told the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper this year that the military had underestimated how much it would need to spend to acquire new Armata tanks. Mr. Putin had pledged the government would buy 2,300 by 2020.
“We miscalculated on the Armata,” he was quoted as saying. “The money allocated for that project turns out to be too little.” Production costs are 250 percent higher than anticipated, he said, without further details.
The official cost is secret, but Russian press reports estimate that the tanks cost more than $7 million apiece. Orders for the T-50, an expense new fighter jet, are also likely to be reduced.
Mr. Golts noted that although senior Russian officials continued to promise modern weapons, they quietly fiddled with the numbers to be delivered.
He and other analysts suggested that maintaining the image of a robust military being resupplied on schedule was a political necessity, speaking to the large constituency that supports Mr. Putin because he has promised to restore Russia to its great power status.
In addition to numbers, Russia lags in the high technology needed for some weapons systems.
At a booth run by the Main Communications Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces, one computer programmer admitted that he had just that morning finished patching together the system on an aerial drone that took pictures. It was working via public Wi-Fi and Bluetooth networks right then, he said, but he hoped to make it secure soon.
Nearby, Alexander Zaldostanov, the leader of the Night Wolves motorcycle gang and a Putin favorite, was taking in the exhibition, standing not far from equipment like sample S-300 antiaircraft missiles. In Soviet times, he said, the military was a closed structure, so it was great to see it being modernized and popularized.
The United States should be just as worried about stationing heavy weaponry near Russia’s border as the Russians are, he said, because no one knows where it will lead.
“When I come here and see all this, I realize that we have something to answer with,” he said. “This fills you with pride for Russia and confidence that no matter what they deploy, they will never dare push the button.”