Russian official: US reducing ‘nuclear threshold’ by deploying modernized weapons

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko on Saturday accused the U.S. of reducing the “nuclear threshold” by deploying modernized tactical nuclear weapons to NATO bases in Europe.

“We cannot ignore the plans to modernize nuclear weapons, those free-fall bombs that are in Europe,” Grushko told the state-run news agency RIA Novosti, according to Reuters. “The United States is modernizing them, increasing their accuracy and reducing the power of the nuclear charge, that is, they turn these weapons into ‘battlefield weapons’, thereby reducing the nuclear threshold.”

The U.S. told NATO allies in a recent meeting that it was planning to fast-track its deployment of modernized B61 gravity bombs, moving up their arrival date in Europe from next spring to this December, Politico reported Wednesday. 

However, the Pentagon told Politico that the modernization has “been underway for years.”

The new B61-12 air-dropped gravity bomb that will be heading to NATO bases has a lower nuclear yield than earlier versions, according to Reuters.

Nuclear tensions have been increasingly heightened between the U.S. and Russia amid the latter’s war in Ukraine. As Russian forces have continued to falter, the country’s president, Vladimir Putin, has made increasingly explicit nuclear threats.

President Biden warned earlier this month that the world is facing its greatest nuclear threat — the prospect of nuclear “Armageddon” — since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

But following the president’s Armageddon comments, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre sought to frame Biden’s words as a general warning on nuclear escalation. Asked if there has been intelligence to increase the president’s level of concern, Jean-Pierre said, “no.”

Putin said Thursday that Russia does not intend to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Biden responded, calling Putin’s approach in Ukraine “very dangerous.”

“If he has no intention, why does he keep talking about it?” Biden said. “Why does he talk about the ability to use a tactical nuclear weapon?”