MOSCOW, June 17. NATO countries are discussing putting the alliance's nuclear warheads on alert, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the British newspaper Telegraph.
«I won't go into operational detail about how many nuclear warheads should be on alert… but we we need to consult on these issues. This is exactly what we are doing,” the newspaper quotes the secretary general of the alliance.
As the publication writes, Stoltenberg explained that NATO must demonstrate its nuclear arsenal to the world in order to send a direct signal to the enemies of the North Atlantic. alliance.
NATO Secretary General added that China is actively investing in its nuclear arsenal, which, according to him, will grow to one thousand warheads by the early 2030s.
““And that means that in the not too distant future NATO will likely face something it has never faced before, namely two potential adversaries with nuclear weapons — China and Russia — and, of course, this entails consequences,” the newspaper quotes Stoltenberg as saying. .
Earlier at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow does not rattle nuclear weapons. The head of state warned that the issue of using weapons of mass destruction should not be taken lightly.
Scenarios in which Russia could theoretically use nuclear weapons are set out in Russian military doctrine and in the “Fundamentals of State Policy in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence.” According to the documents, this is possible in the event of aggression against Russia or its allies using weapons of mass destruction or aggression using conventional weapons, when the existence of the state itself is threatened.