US President Donald Trump said his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin should end the war in Ukraine, not conduct nuclear-powered missile tests, and stressed that Washington has deployed a nuclear submarine off the Russian coast, Reuters reported, BTA reported.
Yesterday, Putin said that Russia had successfully tested its new nuclear-powered, nuclear-capable "Burevestnik" cruise missile 9M730, which Moscow says can penetrate any defense system, and stressed that Russia will proceed with the deployment of the weapon.
Asked aboard the presidential plane "Air Force One" about the test of the "Burevestnik" missile 9M730 (SSC-X-9 Skyfall according to NATO codification), which Moscow reported had traveled 14,000 kilometers and was in the air for about 15 hours, Trump replied that the US did not need to fly that far, since they have a nuclear submarine off the coast of Russia.
"They know that we have a nuclear submarine, the largest in the world, right off their coast, so, I mean, it doesn't have to go 8,000 miles (14,000 kilometers)", Trump told reporters, according to an audio file released by the White House. "I don't think it's appropriate for Putin to say things like that, by the way: You should have ended the war, the war that's supposed to last a week, it's now in its fourth year, you should have done that instead of testing missiles," the US president added.
Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the war in Ukraine, the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II, although he has said that achieving peace there is more difficult than concluding a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip or ending the conflict between India and Pakistan.
Since he first announced the Burevestnik missile in 2018 9M730, Putin presents the weapon as a response to US moves to build an air defense shield after Washington unilaterally withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001, as well as to NATO expansion.
"They don't play with us and we don't play with them," Trump said. "We test missiles all the time," he added.
On Saturday, Reuters reported that the Trump administration had prepared additional sanctions that it could impose to hit key areas of the Russian economy if Putin continued to delay ending the war in Ukraine. Asked if he was considering additional sanctions against Russia, Trump said: "You'll find out."