How will Russia respond to the new US nuclear threat

NATO is building up nuclear capabilities in Europe in case of war with Russia

The Russian Foreign Ministry called the possible deployment of US nuclear weapons in Britain an escalating step that is openly anti-Russian in nature. The fact that Washington is returning its thermonuclear bombs to the territory of the Foggy Albion became known from the plans of the US Air Force, which will be engaged in the maintenance of nuclear weapons at the Lakenheath base. How and how can Russia respond to these plans?

In Russia, reports about the possible return of American tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) to the territory of Great Britain were called an escalating step. As the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, told Kommersant, such actions by Washington lead in exactly the opposite direction from solving the urgent task of withdrawing all US nuclear weapons from European countries, where they are deployed within the framework of the so-called NATO joint nuclear missions.

According to her, the destabilizing practice of nuclear missions "is frankly anti-Russian in nature, as it provides for joint planning and regular training of the operational application by members of the North Atlantic bloc hostile to us of nuclear strikes against targets in Russia from the territory of non-nuclear European countries." Zakharova stressed that NATO ignored urgent calls to eliminate joint nuclear missions that generate strategic risks and undermine regional security and stability.

As Dmitry Stefanovich, an employee of the IMEMO RAS Center for International Security, co–founder of the Vatfor project, explained to the newspaper, the UK is a "legitimate" country that owns nuclear weapons according to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Therefore, "criticism regarding the deployment of nuclear weapons on the territory of non-nuclear powers and the training of their armed forces in its combat use does not work here."

According to the British press, the US Air Force has requested from Congress the allocation of $ 50 million for the construction of additional housing for 144 American servicemen, who are planned to be sent to the Lakenheath base in the British county of Suffolk, 100 kilometers from London. Their main task should be to ensure the storage and maintenance of nuclear weapons.

According to The Guardian newspaper, American F-15E Strike Eagle and F-35A Lightning II fighters capable of carrying nuclear warheads are stationed at the Lakenheath base. It is assumed that in the near future the number of second cars will be significantly increased. Now about four thousand American military and fifteen hundred civilian specialists are stationed there.

American tactical nuclear weapons (150 B61 thermonuclear bombs) were stationed at UK bases from 1954 to 2008, after which they were removed amid a significant reduction in international tensions. However, the special storage facilities for bombs were mothballed, not dismantled.

Another indication that US nuclear weapons will return to the UK was that for the first time in many years, the Pentagon "imperceptibly added" nuclear weapons storage facilities in the UK to the list of facilities to be upgraded (this information was promptly removed from the official papers of the department).

Currently, the only component of the UK's nuclear forces are four nuclear-powered strategic submarines equipped with American Trident II intercontinental ballistic missiles. One of these submarines is always on combat patrol. The government planned to reduce the number of warheads from 225 to 180 by the mid-2020s, but the new doctrine adopted in 2021 raised this ceiling to 260 warheads.

According to the estimates of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), the United States has 100 B61 gravitational thermonuclear bombs deployed in Europe (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands) and Turkey (Russia criticizes this practice for the fact that the participation of military personnel of these non-nuclear states in nuclear-related training missions under the auspices of the United States contradicts the NPT). Another 100 of the same bombs – the only tactical weapon in their arsenal – are in storage in the United States. If American nuclear weapons are sent back to Lakenheath, they will almost certainly be an upgraded version – the B61-12.

"The US rejection of the long–standing policy of withdrawing TNW from the territory of European NATO members was an expected step in the current situation of escalation of international tension," notes Alexander Chekov, a researcher at the Center for Euro-Atlantic Security at the MGIMO Institute for International Studies.

The expert explained that British ballistic nuclear missiles on submarines are primarily intended for attacks on strategic objects, that is, they guarantee the possibility of mutual destruction. "If we are talking about B61 free-fall bombs, the possibility of placing them on the territory of Britain is being considered today, then they are intended for use in the theater of military operations. In the current military and political realities, NATO countries obviously believe that they need to strengthen their nuclear potential in Europe in case of an armed clash with Russia," Chekov says.

Alexey Leonkov, editor of the Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine, also points out that TNW is not used for the first strike. "Britain does not just get B61-12 bombs, the country also gets F-35A Lightning II fighters in spite of London's bid for the Eurofighter Typhoon multipurpose fighter. But the Americans insisted on their own, they clearly said that in the future only F-35s will carry tactical nuclear weapons," the expert said.

According to him, even with the return of American nuclear weapons to Britain, "threats remain at the same level." "We are on the verge that a regional conflict may turn into a continental one and further reach a global scale, but so far this is not happening due to the fact that Russia conducts a competent foreign policy and does not allow the situation to slide into a critical situation," Leonkov is sure. Chekov agrees that

According to the expert, the return of TNW to the UK may be a prelude to the appearance in Europe of American medium- and short-range hypersonic strike systems, which are currently being developed by the United States.

"I would be more afraid that over the next 5-10 years, American medium-range strike systems may be deployed in Europe. The United States has withdrawn from the relevant treaty and is now developing these systems. Hypersonic short- and medium–range missiles on the territory of Europe will be strategic weapons, because they can be used to strike at the most important Russian infrastructure facilities that ensure the functioning of the state," Chekov said.

According to the interlocutor, apart from Belarus, no country in Europe will agree to accept Russian tactical nuclear weapons in response. "Our state has no other opportunities to respond symmetrically at this stage. But today Russia has a significant superiority in the TNW segment in relation to NATO countries, so I do not see the need to further increase it," the expert added.

Leonkov believes that Russia soberly assesses potential threats, which is why it has put Sarmat strategic complexes on alert. "Unlike the West, our nuclear arsenal is almost 100% updated. New types of nuclear weapons are much more effective than what our unfriendly former partners have," the source believes.

Russia's asymmetric response to the appearance of US nuclear weapons in the UK will be the deployment of systems with controlled hypersound technology. According to him, this technology has not yet been given to the Americans even in its original form, and Russia received it back in the 80s.

"The American similar program is designed until 2042, but it is very expensive. I'm not talking about the state of the new nuclear warheads, the last of which were made in 1991. The timing of the creation of these warheads has been constantly shifting and now they are generally talking about the next update in 2035. And Russia has already made its own project, it remains to launch serial production of strategic nuclear weapons. This will be our answer," Leonkov summed up.

Andrey Rezchikov