Russia has demanded that the United States end the its tests and destroy its stocks of the ballistic missile 'Hera', sources told Interfax in Moscow on Wednesday.
Russia is "seriously concerned by the continuation of testing in the United States of the Hera in the framework of developing a non- strategic missile defense system," the sources said. Moscow regards these activities "as a direct and significant violation of the December 8, 1987, treaty on the elimination of medium- and short-range missiles," they said.
Russia considers the Hera to be a medium-range land-based missile, the production and flight testing of which are banned under Item 1, Article 6 of the treaty, the sources said.
Significantly, it has a range of greater than 1,000 kilometers and is created on the basis of the second two stages of the Minuteman-2, which is to be eliminated under the treaty. Further, it incorporates the guidance system from the medium-range Pershing-2 missile, also banned by the treaty.
U.S. defense officials have told their Russian counterparts in the course of consultations that they regard the Hera as a target simulating an incoming land-based missile and as a booster allowed by Item 12, Article 7 of the treaty, the sources said.
It is widely known, however, that at the initial stage the Hera was tested as a separate unit, which is inconsistent with that treaty between the United States and the former USSR, the Russian sources said.
If the tests continue, the United States will be able to deploy hundreds of such missiles in the near future, which could have the effect of destabilizing nuclear deterrence and undermining strategic stability, the sources said.
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