FALCON POWERS – The Russian Presidency (the Kremlin) said on Monday that the statements by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg about discussions to deploy more nuclear weapons represent an escalation.
Stoltenberg told the British newspaper Telegraph that the alliance is holding discussions to deploy more nuclear weapons and take them out of storage, putting them on higher alert, in the face of an increasing threat from Russia and China. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Stoltenberg’s statements appear to contradict the statement from the Ukraine conference, which said any threat or use of nuclear weapons in relation to the events in Ukraine is unacceptable.
Peskov added about Stoltenberg’s statements, “This is nothing but another escalation of tensions.”
Russia says the United States and its European allies are pushing the world to the brink of a nuclear confrontation by providing Ukraine with billions of dollars’ worth of weapons, some of which are used against Russian territory.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, Russia and the United States are the world’s largest nuclear powers by a wide margin, possessing around 88% of the world’s nuclear weapons.
According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the United States has around 100 non-strategic nuclear weapons deployed in five European countries – Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The United States also has 100 additional such weapons within its own borders.
Russia is estimated to have around 1,558 non-strategic nuclear warheads, although arms control experts say it is extremely difficult to determine the exact number due to the secrecy surrounding the data.
