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MOSCOW, Jun 28 – RIA Novosti, Andrey Kots. The United States intends to sharply increase the degree of nuclear missile confrontation with Russia, German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports about this with reference to its own sources in the leadership of the North Atlantic Alliance. The publication claims that at a recent meeting, NATO defense ministers took a new approach to nuclear deterrence and US European allies are ready to host medium-range missiles. About how this threatens Russia and the world, – in the material of RIA Novosti.

Officially, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at a press conference only announced that the alliance would strengthen air defense and missile defense. According to him, many NATO countries want to buy American Patriot systems capable of intercepting and destroying ballistic targets. At the same time, he emphasized that it was not planned to deploy ground-based nuclear missiles in Europe.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper claims that the Secretary General is disingenuous. According to the sources of the publication, the meeting participants have already given the green light to deploying promising American medium-range missiles in conventional equipment. In the event of an escalation of the confrontation with Russia, their warheads can easily be replaced by nuclear ones.

According to the interlocutor of the German journalist, this is a signal to Russia that NATO countries are ready to use nuclear weapons at an early stage of a potential conflict. And these measures were taken in response to the appearance of a 9M729 ground-based cruise missile in Moscow as part of the Iskander operational-tactical complex, which, according to alliance analysts, could be equipped with a nuclear warhead.

Recall that the United States withdrew from the agreement on the elimination of intermediate and shorter-range missiles in August last year, allegedly because of 9M729. Russia categorically rejected all claims. And just a few weeks later, the Americans tested the prototypes of a ground-based first cruise and then medium-range ballistic missile. This proved that the United States was preparing to leave the INF Treaty in advance and used the new Russian ammunition only as an excuse.

If the information of the German media is confirmed, the world will again roll back to the frontiers of the Cold War and Moscow will have to look for ways to confront new challenges. There is no doubt about Washington’s aggressive intentions. So, back in May, the US ambassador to Warsaw, Georgette Moshaber, stated that the White House was considering the possibility of moving American atomic bombs from Germany to Poland – closer to Russian borders. However, medium-range missiles in Europe are a much bigger threat.

“This will lead to a sharp escalation on the whole continent, as during the Cold War,” military expert Yuri Lyamin explains to RIA Novosti. “Such weapons have much shorter flight times to Moscow and other cities of Central Russia than to intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from the USA Accordingly, the possibilities for maneuvering and resolving the conflict peacefully are reduced while the international situation is aggravating. ”

When the flight time is five to ten minutes, it’s too late to agree on anything and it remains only to press the “nuclear button” to answer. Lyamin emphasized that it was precisely because of the high danger of intermediate and shorter-range missiles that they concluded an agreement on their elimination.

“Attempts by the Americans to launch missiles in conventional equipment at our silo launchers, command posts, communications centers are possible, but unlikely,” says Konstantin Sivkov, doctor of military sciences. Therefore, even if the Americans deploy missiles in Europe, it’s only nuclear missiles. The point is to disarm Russia, deprive it of the potential for retaliatory and retaliatory strikes. It must be clearly understood that the United States is preparing for a nuclear war. And the deployment of medium-range missiles is absolutely, with their point of view, naturally. It was only a matter of time. Apparently, the European allies finally bent. “

Experts have not yet decided to judge which countries will bring the missiles. It is possible that they will use the infrastructure that has been preserved since the Cold War.

American nuclear weapons were deployed in Europe in the mid-1950s – then they were air bombs and ammunition for artillery systems. The leadership of NATO and the United States hoped to respond with this in the event of a large-scale conflict with the Warsaw Pact countries, which had an advantage in conventional weapons.

The first US Jupiter medium-range missiles were deployed in Turkey in 1961. This was the main cause of the Caribbean crisis, when the Soviet Union sent similar weapons to Cuba. In the 1980s, in response to the deployment of Soviet Pioneer missiles to combat duty, the Americans deployed ballistic Pershing 2 and ground-based winged Tomahawks with nuclear warheads in the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and the Federal Republic of Germany.

Of course, much has changed since then. Most countries of the Warsaw Treaty Organization joined the North Atlantic Alliance, which now came close to Russia. Therefore, the appearance of American medium-range missiles in Eastern Europe cannot be ruled out.

The information that German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung managed to obtain was recently indirectly confirmed by the US special envoy for arms control Marshal Billingsley. He said that the United States did not see options for introducing a moratorium on intermediate and shorter-range missiles, which had previously been prohibited by the INF Treaty. According to Alexei Pushkov, head of the Federation Council commission on information policy and media relations, the Europeans “played along” to Washington and now run the risk of becoming American hostages again, as during the missile crisis of the 1980s.