US military authorities have announced that they will conduct the first test at least August this year. a surface-to-surface cruise missile, a system with a range of 1000 km, according to US claims.
This announcement comes less than 2 months after the announcement of the temporary suspension of the INF Treaty by the United States, accusing Russia of developing a program that does not respect the prohibitions of that, and followed by the same suspension of the treaty by Russia. If the tests are successful, the new system could be commissioned in 18 months.
However, if Russia had only taken a week to announce work to extend the range of its existing Iskander systems, and the development of a land version of the Kalibr cruise missile, the United States had remained discreet on the subject.
This announcement immediately caused Moscow to react, accusing the United States of having started the development of this program in 2017, and therefore of having used the case of the Novator missile as a pretext for a planned exit from the INF treaty.
More than ever, and as had been announced, Europe is the big loser from leaving the INF treaty. No European country today has a short or medium range ballistic missile program, nor a long range surface-to-surface cruise missile. And concretely, only France and Great Britain would be able to develop such systems and equip them with nuclear charges. However, neither country has, for the moment, announced any work in this direction.