Russia then imposed a moratorium on its own development of missiles previously banned by the INF treaty - ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 km to 5,500 km (310 miles to 3,417 miles).

Trump in 2018 said he wanted to terminate the INF Treaty because of what he said were years of Russian violations and his concerns about China’s intermediate-range missile arsenal.

The United States publicly blamed Russia's development of the 9M729 ground-launched cruise missile, known in NATO as the SSC-8, as the reason for it leaving the INF Treaty.

In his moratorium proposal, Putin suggested Russia could agree not to deploy the missiles in its Baltic coast exclave of Kaliningrad. Since leaving the pact, the United States has tested missiles with a similar profile.