Moscow will give an “appropriate response” if the US station nuclear weapons in Britain, a senior Russian diplomat has warned Monday, as President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine reaches the second-year mark this month.
Gennady Gatilov, Moscow’s permanent representative to the UN, said that Moscow is monitoring Washington’s reported plans to station its nuclear weapons in Britain, the Baltics, and Poland on the Rossiya-24 TV channel, state news agency TASS reported.
Gatilov said: “All this breeds tensions. We are following these developments. Of course, if this is true, Russia will be forced to respond accordingly.”
He also stressed that Western countries would not raise this issue at the UN Conference of Disarmament – the world’s single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum – but warned that such a possible deployment “creates tensions and by no means contributes to the negotiation process on the disarmament track.”
His remarks came days after the US plans to station nuclear weapons at a Royal Air Force station in the UK for the first in 15 years to counter the growing threat from Russia, as reported by The Telegraph, citing Pentagon documents.
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Nuclear missiles – some three times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb – used to be stationed at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk but were removed by the US in 2008 as the Cold War threat from Moscow had diminished.
RAF Lakenheath – located 80 miles northeast of London – is the largest US Air Force-operated base in England.
The possibility of the US deploying nuclear weapons to the UK comes after NATO officials warned member states to prepare their citizens for a possible war with Russia.
Admiral Rob Bauer, chair of the NATO Military Committee, issued a warning on January that NATO allies should prepare for an “all-our war” with Russia within 20 years.
General Sir Patrick Sanders, the UK Chief of the General Staff, called on the government to prepare for the possibility to mobilize civilians if there was war with Russia because the army is too small to respond to threats.
The British Army is estimated to include around 75,000 fully trained professional soldiers as of last October, whereas the Russian Armed Forces is reported to have 1.32 million as their military action in Ukraine continues into its second year.
Sanders said: “Taking preparatory steps to enable placing our societies on a war footing when needed are now not merely desirable but essential.
“Our friends in eastern and northern Europe, who feel the proximity of the Russian threat more acutely, are already acting prudently, laying the foundations for national mobilization.”
Moscow has already denounced the potential deployment of US nuclear weapons to the UK, stating that any move to do so constitutes an “escalation.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told TASS last year: “If this happens, it will be treated by us as an escalation, which will lead to the exact opposite of achieving the pressing task of removing all US nuclear weapons from Europe.”
Gatilov’s remarks also come a few days after Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned that it is possible for nuclear weapons to be placed in the UK in the future – an action he believes is a poor form of intimidation.
He said: “If they think that deploying nuclear arms in the UK will be some kind of deterrent for Russia then they are wrong. This will not deter us, we will find a way to ‘deal’ with this.”
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