AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said that Russian President Vladimir Putin should end the war in Ukraine instead of testing a nuclear-powered missile, adding that the U.S. had a nuclear submarine positioned off Russia’s coast.
Putin said on Sunday 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.
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.
Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the war in Ukraine, Europe’s deadliest since World War Two, though he has said that finding peace has been harder than reaching a ceasefire in Gaza or ending conflict between India and Pakistan.
Since first announcing the 9M730 Burevestnik in 2018, Putin has cast the weapon as a response to moves by the United States to build a missile defence shield after Washington in 2001 unilaterally withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and to enlarge the NATO military alliance.
“They’re not playing games with us and we’re not playing games with them either,” Trump said. “We test missiles all the time.”
Reuters reported from Washington on Oct. 25 that Trump’s administration has prepared additional sanctions it could use to target key areas of Russia’s economy if Putin continues to delay ending Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Asked if he was considering additional sanctions on Russia, Trump said: “You’ll find out.”
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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