France is planning to conduct joint air force exercises with Poland over the Baltic Sea involving Rafale fighter jets “equipped with nuclear warheads” to simulate strikes against targets in Russia, TASS reported yesterday, citing the Wirtualna Polska website. The TASS report came after French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk met on April 20 in the Polish city of Gdansk to discuss defense cooperation between the two countries, to include “elements of nuclear deterrence,” among other areas of nuclear cooperation.
According to the report, the exercises may take place in the near future, with the Baltic Sea and northern Poland as the venues. Polish air forces are also expected to participate. Their tasks will include target detection and practicing strikes with conventional weapons, primarily US-made JASSM-ER cruise missiles, against “important targets near St. Petersburg.” Moscow is not likely to view kindly two NATO members practicing nuclear strikes aimed at Russian territory very kindly.
The report emphasizes that France has no plans to station nuclear-capable fighter jets in Poland on a permanent basis. Sources cited by the publication also said that the response scenarios being developed by Paris and Warsaw for a purported “possible Russian attack” do not require consultations within NATO under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
TASS notes that the day before, Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said that French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk had not discussed holding joint nuclear exercises. According to him, cooperation in nuclear deterrence between the two countries is not as advanced as media reports suggest.
In Helsinki, meanwhile, the Finnish government is moving towards repealing statutory prohibitions on the presence of nuclear weapons on Finnish territory. “Legislative restrictions on the import of nuclear explosives into Finland, as well as on their transport, delivery, and storage within its territory, will be removed if such activities are related to Finland’s defense, NATO’s collective defense, or defense cooperation,” the Finnish Ministy of Defense said in a statement, reported TASS. TASS adds that this proposal is part of a package of legislative reforms that Finland is implementing as part of its integration into NATO.
The statement notes that the purchase, production, development, and use of nuclear explosives, as well as scientific activities related to the production of nuclear explosives, will continue to be considered criminal offenses.
Finland’s intention to allow the import of nuclear weapons onto its territory is “concentrated confrontation,” Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed. “This is confrontation, and that is how it should be understood. Moreover, confrontation in a concentrated form,” Peskov indicated in a comment to Channel One.
