The United States must return all American nuclear weapons stationed outside its borders, said Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov
“In this period of tension and heightened risk, nuclear states have a special responsibility to prevent escalation. In this regard, I once again urge Washington to return all nuclear weapons deployed abroad to its national territory, and to eliminate the foreign infrastructure for their storage and maintenance. In addition, stop the practice of testing the use of such ammunition with the involvement of military personnel of non-nuclear states in the framework of NATO’s “joint nuclear missions”, which are contrary to the fundamental principles of the NPT,” the Russian diplomat stressed.
This is how Anatoly Antonov commented on the publication of the Politico newspaper, which reported that the United States decided to accelerate the deployment of modernized B61-12 nuclear bombs in Europe. The Russian ambassador stressed that in this matter the United States is speculating on the formal differences between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons and the fact that Russia has similar weapons.
“At the same time, they are silent about the fact that all of our tactical nuclear weapons are located in centralized storage facilities on the territory of Russia and cannot pose a threat to the United States. American air bombs are deployed in European countries with a short flight time to Russian borders. Therefore, B61-12s, despite their limited power, are of strategic importance,” the diplomat explained.
Antonov added that the US military, together with NATO partners, regularly conduct exercises on the use of these ammunition, while stating that the maneuvers are not directed against the Russian Federation.
“The question arises: against whom else is the alliance, in the strategic concept of which our country is called “the most significant and direct security threat,” is training to use nuclear weapons?” the ambassador noted.
New bombs for Europe
Earlier, the Politico newspaper announced the postponement of the delivery of American B61-12 nuclear bombs to Europe to December this year.
“As US officials told NATO allies at a private meeting in Brussels in October, the delivery of the upgraded B61-12 free-drop bomb, originally scheduled for next spring, has been postponed to December this year,” the newspaper writes, citing diplomatic sources.
At the same time, the official representative of the Pentagon, Brigadier General Patrick Ryder, said that the US defense department had planned this step earlier and it was not connected with any current events.
“Although we are not going to discuss in detail our nuclear arsenal, the modernization of the American B61 atomic bomb has been underway for many years, and the intention to replace older ammunition in a safe and responsible manner with modernized versions of the B61-12 is part of a long-planned and programmatic measure of modernization. These efforts are not at all connected with current events in Ukraine and have not been accelerated in any way”, Politico quotes his response.
Recall that the B61 is a family of nuclear-capable drop bombs developed in the United States in the early 1960s.
The B61-12 Bomb Modernization and Life Extension Program was launched in the 2010s as part of an overall effort to upgrade the US nuclear arsenal. Politico notes that the goal of the program, which is run by the US Department of Energy, is to replace obsolete bombs, including more than 100 ammunition stored at air bases in Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey.
It is assumed that the upgraded B61-12 bombs will have “significantly higher accuracy”, and the range of carrier aircraft for them will expand – including B-2 and B-21 bombers, F-15, F-16, F-35 fighters and Tornado.
“Thanks to a modern tail unit, when it enters service, the B61-12 will combine higher accuracy and significantly less power, which in general will not affect military performance,” the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) notes.
The agency also notes that the service life of B61 nuclear bombs is being extended to ensure their “safety, reliability and efficiency.”
“The B61-12 life extension program provides for the renewal, reuse or replacement of all nuclear and non-nuclear components of the bomb to extend its service life by at least 20 years. The implementation of the program will solve all the problems associated with the aging of the aerial bomb, increase its reliability, [capabilities] of maintenance in the field, safety, as well as control of use”, says the department.
Anti-Russian vector
Moscow has repeatedly warned that US actions in the field of deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe lead to a dangerous lowering of the threshold for their use.
“We are also concerned about a significant change in US approaches in the context of their updated nuclear strategy, which provides for an increase in the role of nuclear weapons, including through the creation and deployment of so-called low-yield charges, which leads to a lower threshold for the use of nuclear weapons,” said the head of Russian diplomacy Sergey Lavrov at conference on disarmament in Geneva in 2018.
In addition, the minister emphasized that the “joint nuclear missions” of the United States and non-nuclear NATO states violate the non-proliferation treaty, and are also preparations for the use of nuclear weapons against Russia.
“It should be clear to everyone that by doing so, the US military is preparing the armed forces of European countries to use tactical nuclear weapons against Russia,” Lavrov concluded.
Experts, in turn, draw attention to the fact that Washington is actually supplying non-nuclear states with weapons of mass destruction, formally placing them within NATO at its bases on their territories.
“In Europe, at six bases, there are US nuclear weapons, with which experts and militaries of non-nuclear states work, which must comply with the NPT. On what basis is this happening? Russia does not allow itself this”, said Andrey Koshkin, a member of the Academy of Military Sciences of the Russian Federation, in an interview with RT.
He recalls that the United States is the only state – a member of the so-called nuclear club, which has arsenals of nuclear weapons outside its territory.
Professor of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry Vladimir Vinokurov, for his part, drew attention to the fact that Western countries have recently been actively bringing discussions about the danger of using nuclear weapons into the information space, while a priori blaming Russia for the potential use of such ammunition.
“Of course, first of all, there is an association with the well-known wise proverb: “On a thief, even a hat is on fire.” Be that as it may, the Russian Federation does not have nuclear weapons outside its borders. It is the United States that has numerous stockpiles of its tactical nuclear weapons on the territories of many European countries,” says Vinokurov.
From his point of view, the steps and plans of the United States in this area really increase the risk of using nuclear weapons. At the same time, the threshold for its use is reduced not only due to the saturation of nuclear weapons in Europe, but also due to a decrease in the power of nuclear charges, the expert added.
“In itself, the fact of deploying such weapons on the territory of a non-nuclear state is already a violation of the NPT, which, of course, increases the risk of unleashing a war using these types of weapons. In addition, the United States has already dropped depleted uranium bombs in Yugoslavia. From this it is easy to move on to low-yield charges for submarine forces and then to real nuclear weapons, which they deploy and upgrade on the territory of European countries in violation of all treaties and agreements”, concluded Vinokurov.
Alexander Karpov, Alena Medvedeva, RT
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