The United States has provided its European allies with intelligence regarding Russia's alleged violations of the INF Treaty, and the German government has found this evidence Spiegel Magazine reports.
According to Spiegel, following a BND (German intelligence) analysis of the information provided by the US, the federal government "assesses the evidence as convincing" that Russia is violating the treaty.
The US intelligence was said to include trajectory data on Russia's RK-55 (NATO codename SSC-8 'Screwdriver') land-based cruise missile, as well as information about Russian defence companies allegedly involved in the design and production of missiles and launchers prohibited under the treaty.
German officials have yet to comment on the veracity of the Spiegel report.
German officials have been among the main critics of President Donald Trump's plans to withdraw from the INF. Last month, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas stressed that the INF had served as "an important pillar of our European security architecture" for over thirty years, and that while Germany has appealed to Russia over its alleged violations, it would also "urge the US to consider the possible consequences" of withdrawing from the treaty.
Last week, Maas reiterated his concerns, urging the US "not to recklessly abandon the INF Treaty," and saying that Germany does not want to see Europe "become a platform for debates about nuclear arms."
Moscow has called the US plans to withdraw from the INF very dangerous, saying it might draw "entire regions of the world into an arms race." Russian officials have said repeatedly that they were prepared to clarify any possible problems the US had with the treaty. Moscow has also said that US claims against Russia were based on "direct and obvious violations of the INF" by Washington itself. This, Moscow said, included the revent US deployment of dual-use missile defense shield components in Romania and Poland, which could theoretically be armed with ground-based nuclear-armed cruise missiles banned under the INF.