The Russian Foreign Ministry believes that the return of US nuclear weapons to Great Britain could be a likely, albeit destabilising scenario. Reports about USA's plans to deploy nukes in the UK earlier appeared in The Telegraph.
Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Sergei Ryabkov said that the decision of the US authorities to return nuclear weapons to the UK would be a destabilising step. Moscow "strongly warns” Washington against such a move, he added.
"With regard to the hypothetical return of American tactical nuclear weapons to the UK, I would like to strongly warn them against this destabilising step,” Ryabkov said.
This is a likely scenario, Ryabkov also said adding that the scenario, if implemented, will lead to an escalation in relations.
On January 27, The Telegraph wrote with reference to Pentagon government procurement that the United States was planning to deploy nuclear weapons in the UK for the first time in 15 years amid the "growing Russian threat.” It goes about B61-12 50-kiloton warheads — they are three times more powerful than the bombs the US dropped on Japan's Hiroshima.
In June 2022, the BBC announced plans to station 54 F-35 fighter jets (the F-35A version is capable of carrying nuclear weapons) at a US base in the United Kingdom in the next few years.
Washington withdrew nuclear weapons from Britain in 2008 hoping that threats from Moscow were subsiding.