Moscow said it would view the move as an 'escalation' that would be met with 'counter-measures'
Pentagon documents reveal the US is intending to place warheads three times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb on UK soil. Moscow said it would view the move as an 'escalation' that would be met with 'counter-measures'.
Procurement contracts for a new facility at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk show the US plans to house B61-12 gravity bombs 'imminently' at the site.
US warheads were last stationed in Britain in 2008, when it was judged that the Cold War threat from Russia had decreased.
The plans come as part of a Nato-wide programme aimed at developing and upgrading nuclear sites in response to rising tensions with the Kremlin.
The unredacted documents from the US Department of Defence's procurement database show the Pentagon has ordered equipment, including ballistic shields, for Lakenheath, and state that construction of a housing facility for US soldiers at the base will start in June.
Nuclear weapons were stationed at RAF Lakenheath during the Cold War. Activists held protests outside the site in 2022 when it was reported that US warheads could be stationed there.
Russian foreign ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said: 'In the context of the transition of the United States and Nato to an openly confrontational course of inflicting a 'strategic defeat' on Russia, this practice and its development force us to take compensating countermeasures to reliably protect the security interests of our country and its allies.'
Comment: 'An openly confrontational course'; because, whilst the West's aggression against Russia has been brazen, the intention behind this move is undeniable.
Notably, back in August 2023: Poland's President says Russia's moving tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus 'shifting regional security'
The Pentagon insisted the documents 'are not predictive of, nor are they intended to disclose any specific posture or basing details'.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: 'It remains a longstanding UK and NATO policy to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons at a given location.'
Comment: This comes amidst the escalation of the US-UK-Israel genocide in Gaza; repeated air strikes against Yemen; and NATO's largest military exercise (also since the cold war) at Russia's borders; all the while on its Ukraine front it faces looming defeat: