Russia-NATO tensions heat up over US missile deployment in Germany amid Ukraine war; Kremlin vows ‘military response’
A day after the United States and Germany announced at a NATO summit in Washington that they would deploy long-range missiles in Germany in 2026 to demonstrate their commitment to the European defence, Russia on Thursday said that it would plan “response measures” to contain the “very serious threat” from the Western military alliance.
According to Russian news agency Tass, Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister in charge of ties with the US, non-proliferation and arms control, gave the warning, saying “We will develop a military response to the new threat calmly, with a cool head.”Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said NATO was now “fully involved in the conflict over Ukraine”, Russian news agencies reported.
Peskov said: “The North Atlantic alliance has once again very clearly confirmed its essence. It is an alliance created in an era of confrontation with the aim of maintaining confrontation.”
“Tensions on the European continent are escalating” as a result, he added.
Further, Peskov said: “This obliges us to analyse very deeply the decisions taken in the discussion that took place. This is a very serious threat to the national security of our country. All of this will require us to take thoughtful, coordinated, effective responses to deter NATO, to counteract NATO.”
NATO summit
NATO on Wednesday said the “episodic deployments” were in preparation for longer-term stationing that would include SM-6, Tomahawk cruise missiles and hypersonic weapons with a longer range than current capabilities in Europe.
The Western military alliance also stated that a new US air defence base in northern Poland, designed to detect and intercept ballistic missile attacks as part of a broader NATO missile shield, was mission-ready.
China reacts
Slamming NATO, China has accused it of seeking security at the expense of others and told the Western alliance not to bring the same “chaos” to Asia.
NATO, in a statement issued at its summit, said China has become an enabler of the war through its “no-limits partnership” with Russia and its large-scale support for Russia’s defence industrial base.
“NATO hyping up China’s responsibility on the Ukraine issue is unreasonable and has sinister motives,” China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a daily briefing. He maintained that China has a fair and objective stance on the Ukraine issue.
He maintained that China has a fair and objective stance on the Ukraine issue.
Turkey has also reacted to the NATO’s announcement.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that any possibility of a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO was “worrying”, the official Anadolu news agency reported.
“The possibility of a direct conflict between NATO and Russia is undoubtedly worrying,” said Erdogan, who is in Washington for a NATO summit.
“Any steps that could lead to this outcome should be consciously avoided.”
