The Kremlin said on Monday that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenbergβs remarks about talks on deploying more nuclear weapons were an escalation.
NATO is in talks to deploy more nuclear weapons, taking them out of storage and placing them on standby, in the face of a growing threat from Russia and China, the head of the alliance said on Monday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Stoltenbergβs comments appeared to contradict the communique of the Ukraine Conference that said any threat or use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine context was inadmissible.
βThis is nothing but another escalation of tension,β Peskov said of the Stoltenberg remarks.
Jens Stoltenberg told Britainβs Telegraph newspaper that there were live consultations between members to use transparency around its nuclear arsenal as a deterrent.
βI wonβt go into operational details about how many nuclear warheads should be operational and which should be stored, but we need to consult on these issues. Thatβs exactly what weβre doing,β he told the paper.
“This is nothing but another escalation of tension,” Peskov said of the Stoltenberg remarks.
Russia says the United States and its European allies are pushing the world to the brink of nuclear confrontation by giving Ukraine billions of dollars worth of weapons, some of which are being used against Russian territory.
Russia and the United States are by far the world’s biggest nuclear powers, holding about 88% of the world’s nuclear weapons, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
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