The United States had determined that Russia is in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty that President Ronald Reagan signed with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, according to The Associated Press.
The accusation was released in the State Department's annual report on international compliance of arms control agreements released Tuesday, the AP reported.
The treaty says the U.S. and Russia cannot possess, produce or test-flight a ground-launched cruise missile with a range of 300 to 3,400 miles, and possessing or producing launchers for this type of missiles also is banned under the treaty, which helps protect the the U.S. and its allies in Europe and the Far East, the AP reported.
"We're going to hold them to living up to the commitments that they've made," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said, according to the AP. The administration has not said where and when the alleged violation occurred.
Retired Lt. Gen. Yevgeniy Buzhinsky, the former head of the Russian Defense Ministry's international department, said that the U.S. complaints dated back to 2009, the AP reported. The administration raised its concerns about the treaty with Moscow last year.
"Now, when an information war is being waged against Russia, the old accusations are being used again," Buzhinsky said, according to the AP.
"It is fair for you to conclude that their response to our concerns was wholly unsatisfactory," Earnest said, the AP reported.
Buzhinsky said that Russia has had its own complaints about the U.S. compliance with the INF treaty, including the way the U.S. was using its missiles as targets to test its missile interceptors, which he argued is forbidden under the treaty, according to the AP.
Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said the United States remains in full compliance with all its INF Treaty obligations, the AP reported.
Russian presidential chief of staff Sergei Ivanov lamented in June 2013 that the U.S. never needed the entire class of intermediate-range missiles that the treaty banned unless it planned to go to war with Mexico or Canada, according to the AP.
Since the treaty was signed, countries along Russia's borders, such as North Korea, China, Pakistan and India, have acquired these types of weapons, he said, the AP reported.
"Why can anyone have weapons of this class but the U.S. and we legally cannot?" Ivanov said according to the AP.
Obama did announce last year that he wants to cut the number of U.S. nuclear arms by another third and that he would "seek negotiated cuts" with Russia, a goal now complicated by the accusation of a missile treaty violation, the AP reported.
