Russia will take into account the U.K.-France nuclear deterrence partnership in both political and in military planning, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on July 10. “Now that this type of interaction is being formalized and put on a stable and solid basis, we will take this into account not only politically but also in our military planning,” the senior Russian diplomat said, responding to a correspondent’s question, reported TASS.
Russia cannot ignore the aggregate potential of these two countries as the U.S. closest allies in NATO, he stressed. “All this fits into the general and, let us say directly, anti-Russian focus of the NATO policy,” the high-ranking diplomat explained.
In a report posted in 2024, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated that the U.K. had a stockpile of 225 nuclear warheads, while that of France was put at 290.
