Kremlin officials are slowly organising a “coordinated response” to Donald Trump’s plan to redeploy two nuclear submarines closer to Russia, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
Trump ordered the repositioning of two US submarines to “appropriate regions” relative to Russia last Friday.
It comes as the US president grows increasingly frustrated over stalling peace talks with Russia.
While the Kremlin did not immediately respond, Russian officials have now “begun to coalesce around similar rhetorical lines”, the ISW notes, and are posing Trump’s decision as “emotional”.
The US-based thinktank points to comments yesterday by Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, who said that discussions of nuclear escalation are premature and a “very emotional” perception of the situation.
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Meanwhile, Grigory Karasin, chair of Russia’s foreign affairs council committee, said it was always better to be less emotional and more rational in foreign policy.
And Russian state duma deputy Mikhail Matveev also called Trump’s response “emotional”.
“These official Russian responses ignore the Kremlin’s history of frequently leveraging nuclear sabre-rattling to push the West to make decisions that benefit Russia,” the ISW says.
The thinktank also notes that Russia regularly uses Russian Security Council Deputy chairman Dmitry Medvedev to introduce nuclear threats into the Russian and international information spaces.