Kremlin says NATO's nuclear exercises fuel tensions in light of 'hot war' in Ukraine
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Kremlin says NATO's nuclear exercises fuel tensions in light of 'hot war' in Ukraine
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said that NATO's annual nuclear exercise involving nuclear-capable military aircraft, which began on Monday, was fuelling tensions in light of the "hot war" unfolding in Ukraine.
NATO was due to begin its annual "Steadfast Noon” nuclear exercise on Monday, the alliance's Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Thursday, something he cast as a powerful display of deterrence capabilities against a backdrop of heightened nuclear rhetoric from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
F-35A fighter jets and B-52 bombers will be among some 60 aircraft from 13 nations taking part in the exercise, hosted by Belgium and The Netherlands, NATO officials said.
"In the conditions of a hot war, which is going on within the framework of the Ukrainian conflict, such exercises lead to nothing but further escalation of tension," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Peskov said it was also impossible to hold nuclear arms talks with the US, something Washington has signalled it is open to, because Western nuclear powers were involved in the conflict against Russia and any security talks would therefore need to be much broader in scope.
US President Joe Biden said after the award of the Nobel Peace Prize last Friday to Nihon Hidankyo, a movement of Japanese survivors of the U.S. atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War Two, that the US was ready to engage in talks with Russia, China and North Korea without preconditions to reduce the nuclear threat.
"In the context of the war that is being waged against Russia with the indirect and even direct involvement of nuclear powers such as the United States, Great Britain and France, it is absolutely impossible to talk about this without linking the issue to all other aspects of security," said Peskov.
