Russia says it may deploy nuclear missiles in response to US weapons in Germany

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By Mark Trevelyan

(Reuters) – Russia does not rule out new deployments of nuclear missiles in response to the planned U.S. stationing of long-range conventional weapons in Germany, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Interfax news agency cited Ryabkov as saying that the defence of Russia’s Kaliningrad region, which is wedged between NATO members Poland and Lithuania, was a particular focus.

“I am not ruling out any options,” the agency said he told reporters in Moscow when asked to comment on the U.S. deployment plans.

The United States said last week it would start deployment in Germany from 2026 of weapons that will include SM-6, Tomahawk and new hypersonic missiles in order to demonstrate its commitment to NATO and European defence.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month that Moscow would resume producing short and intermediate-range land-based missiles and decide where to place them if needed. Most of Russia’s missile systems are capable of being fitted with either conventional or nuclear warheads.

Interfax quoted Ryabkov as saying Russia would choose from the widest possible array of options to work out the most effective response to the U.S. move, including in terms of cost.

He said Kaliningrad, the westernmost part of Russia that is cut off from the rest of its land mass, “has long attracted the unhealthy attention of our opponents”.

“Kaliningrad is no exception in terms of our 100% determination to do everything necessary to push back those who may harbour aggressive plans and who try to provoke us to take certain steps that are undesirable for anyone and are fraught with further complications,” Ryabkov said.

The missiles that Russia and the United States are contemplating deploying are intermediate-range ground-based weapons that were banned under a 1987 U.S.-Soviet treaty. The U.S. quit the treaty in 2019, accusing Russia of violations that Moscow denied.

Security experts say the planned deployments are part of an arms race that adds to an already complex array of threats at a time of acute tensions over the war in Ukraine.

A Russian deployment of nuclear missiles in Kaliningrad would send a powerful signal to the West because of its direct proximity to NATO countries.

But Andrey Baklitskiy, an arms control expert with the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, said Russian missile launchers in Kaliningrad would probably be visible “at every second” to NATO intelligence and surveillance, so such a deployment would amount to “posturing”.

In a telephone interview earlier this week, he said Russia might also deploy missiles in its Moscow or Leningrad regions or in Chukotka in the far east, from where they could target Alaska or even California.