The Russian government responded to NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg’s June 17 interview with the U.K.’s The Telegraph in which he reported that NATO members were in consultations about placing NATO’s nuclear weapons on higher alert. “This is nothing else but an escalation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said yesterday, reported TASS. Unlike Western officials, the Russian President never talks about nuclear weapons “at his own initiative as he takes the issue seriously,” he said. “Whenever President Putin comments on the issue of nuclear arms, he does so, taking someone’s questions or questions from reporters, including foreign ones,” he explained.
Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, called Stoltenberg’s remarks an intimidation tactic and said they should be taken with a grain of salt. “I understand this is a desire to scare, but on the other hand the exercises [NATO’s Steadfast Noon nuclear exercises] are held regularly and should be held regularly. As far as I can tell, no special significance should be given to it. We should keep a cool head,” he said.
