Russia threatened to respond to nuclear weapons in Europe

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that if twenty more American atomic bombs were placed in Germany, Russia would be forced to take countermeasures.

“Of course, this is another step, and, unfortunately, a very serious step, towards escalating tension on the European continent,” the RBC agency quotes Peskov.

About US plans locate At the airbase in Germany, modern atomic bombs were previously reported by the German television channel ZDF. The TV channel made this conclusion after studying the budget of the US Air Force for the next year.

According to Peskov, the deployment of new atomic bombs in Germany could disrupt the strategic balance in Europe and Russia will have to take retaliatory steps to restore the balance.

Later, Russian military-diplomatic sources told news agencies that we could be talking about the deployment of Iskander-M operational-tactical missile systems in the Kaliningrad region.

Bombs in europe

According to German journalists, we are talking about about twenty bombs such as B61-12, each of which is equal in power to eighty bombs dropped on Hiroshima. In addition, they are much more accurate than most other atomic bombs.

It is expected that the new bombs, which will be placed at the air base in Büchel, adapted for use with the German fighter-bombers Tornado. In the event of war, the bombs will be used by German pilots, not the American ones.

There was no official reaction to the message of German journalists.

At the present time, according to various data, from ten to two hundred American atomic bombs are stored at the Büchel airbase. This is the only base in Germany on which American nuclear weapons remain.

At the end of the last century, the size of the US atomic arsenal in Germany was estimated at about the 150 bombs, most of which were stored at the Ramstein Air Base. However, in the early 2000-s about 130 bombs were taken out of the country. Experts in an interview with ZDF confirmed that the tactical atomic bombs B61-12 are much more accurate than those that were previously stored at the air base.

Iskanders again

As Interfax learned, in response to the deployment of new American nuclear weapons in Germany, Russia may deploy Iskander-M operational-tactical missile systems in the Kaliningrad region." The final decision will be made after a detailed analysis of the potential threats that arise in connection with this “that the German Tornado fighter-bombers at the Bundeswehr airbase Büchel are planned to be equipped with new B-61-12 atomic bombs,” the agency quotes the words of an unnamed source in Russian military-diplomatic circles.

“The creation and, if necessary, buildup of a group of troops in the Kaliningrad region, including the deployment of Iskander operational-tactical complexes, could be one of Russia’s possible responses to the deployment of modernized US tactical nuclear weapons in Germany and other European countries,” General Yuri believes Baluevsky, who headed the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces in 2004-2008.

Another response, according to the general, could be increased military activity in the Baltic and Black Seas.

After the annexation of Crimea, Baluevsky says, Russia’s hands in the Black Sea are untied. “We can do everything we need in the Black Sea region, on land and at sea,” Interfax quotes the former chief of the General Staff.