(CNN) -- Russia will have to build up its nuclear forces if the United States fails to ratify the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty the two countries signed this year, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warns in an upcoming CNN interview.
"That's not our choice. We don't want that to happen. But this is not a threat on our part," Putin told CNN's Larry King in an interview to air Wednesday. "We've been simply saying that this is what all of us expects to happen if we don't agree on a joint effort there".
U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the New START in April. The pact would cut each country's deployed nuclear warheads by approximately one-third, limiting each side to a maximum of 1,550 on no more than 700 launchers, and allow both nations to resume on-site inspections.
He said it would take "a very dumb nature" for the United States to ignore its own interests -- but if it does, "then we'll have to react somehow," including the deployment of new nuclear missile technology. CNN
