Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday said the country had successfully tested its nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile — a move that has drawn a reaction from anothwer massive nuclear power, the United States.
Russia’s chief of general staff Gen Valery Gerasimov, during a meeting with Putin, said the missile had covered 14,000 kilometres during its testing last week. Gerasimov said it spent 15 hours in the air on nuclear power, while saying “that’s not the limit.”
Reacting to the development, US President Donald Trump on Monday said Putin should end the war in Ukraine instead of testing nuclear-powered missiles. Trump also said that the US had a nuclear submarine positioned off Russia’s coast, Reuters reported.
“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 aboard Air Force One, according to an audio file posted by White House.
“I don’t think it’s 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 further added.
Russia guided by national interests, says Kremlin
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that despite its “openness” to dialogue with the US, Russia and Putin were aways “guided by our own national interests.”
“That’s how it was, that’s how it is, and that’s how it’s going to be,” Peskov said. Since announcing the Burevestnik in 2018, Putin has cast the weapon as a response to US moves to build a missile defence shield since Washington withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Reuters reported.
Peskov, however, added that there was “nothing here that can and should strain relations between Moscow and Washington.”
Trump also said that US tests missiles “all the time.” “They’re not playing games with us and we’re not playing games with them either,” Reuters quoted Trump as saying.
