According to official sources, the missile was launched by the US Navy from San Nicolas Island which is not far off the coast of Los Angeles, California. The US has indicated that the test was intended to send a message to China, which has many intermediate-range missiles.
An urgent United Nations Security Council was called at the request of China and Russia to specifically discuss the threat both Russia and China say is posed by US medium-range missiles.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his country's military to work out a "symmetrical response".
The latest escalations in tensions follows the US's withdrawal from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces arms control treaty that had been signed during the height of the Cold War. At the meeting, Jonathan Cohen, President Trump's hawkish Ambassador to the UN offered "We're here today because the Russian Federation preferred a world in which the United States continued to fulfil its INF Treaty obligations, while the Russian Federation did not. Indeed, the Russian Federation and China would still like a world where the United States exercises self-restraint while they continue their arms build-ups - unabated and unabashed."
Officials at the Pentagon confirmed it was testing, an INF-range ballistic missile with a range of roughly up to 4,000 kilometres (2,485 miles) and whilst there is no time frame announced, the US hopes to develop and deploy the missiles "sooner rather than later".
Recommended for you...
