Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has said Moscow will respond in kind to any steps NATO takes over Russia’s decision to suspend a 1987 nuclear missile treaty.

Earlier, NATO had urged Russia to destroy its new missile system before an August deadline and save a treaty that keeps land-based nuclear warheads out of Europe.

NATO defense ministers will discuss today their next steps if Moscow keeps a missile system that the United States says would allow short-notice nuclear attacks on Europe and break the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.