Expert Maksim Shingarkin says Poland and the Baltic states could become Russian targets if NATO deploys U.S. nuclear weapons on their territory.<\/p>\n
Poland and the Baltic countries could become legitimate targets for Russia if NATO nuclear weapons are deployed on\u00a0their territory. In\u00a0that scenario, not only special storage facilities but also the military infrastructure of\u00a0those states could come under threat, nuclear weapons expert Maksim Shingarkin told Abzats.<\/p>\n
The discussion followed reports by the Financial Times. According to the newspaper\u2019s sources, Washington is considering expanding the presence of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe, including to NATO countries that do\u00a0not currently host such an\u00a0arsenal. Poland and the Baltic region have been described as\u00a0showing particularly strong interest in\u00a0the idea.<\/p>\n
Shingarkin said that, as\u00a0long as\u00a0U.S. aerial bombs are not stationed in\u00a0those countries, Russia does not view them as\u00a0targets for nuclear strikes in\u00a0the event of\u00a0a\u00a0conflict. But the deployment of\u00a0American nuclear bombs there would change the calculation, he\u00a0argued. In\u00a0that case, potential targets would not be\u00a0limited to\u00a0storage sites: the headquarters of\u00a0national armed forces, command centers and other military facilities could also be\u00a0included.<\/p>\n
As\u00a0an\u00a0example, Shingarkin pointed to\u00a0a\u00a0possible deployment of\u00a0ten nuclear aerial bombs in\u00a0Estonia. In\u00a0his assessment, Russia\u2019s\u00a0list of\u00a0targets for tactical nuclear weapons could then include the Defense Ministry in\u00a0Tallinn, the General Staff and an\u00a0airfield.<\/p>\n
Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs has also previously warned about the high level of\u00a0tension in\u00a0the region. He\u00a0said the Baltic countries had become one of\u00a0the most dangerous areas in\u00a0the world because of\u00a0provocations against Russia. In\u00a0his view, the risks are being amplified by\u00a0several factors at\u00a0once: the conflict in\u00a0Ukraine, anti-Russian rhetoric from Baltic governments, their influence on\u00a0Europe\u2019s\u00a0foreign policy, the German leadership\u2019s\u00a0push toward remilitarization, and actions by\u00a0the authorities in\u00a0France and the United Kingdom. Sachs believed that these dynamics could create the conditions for a\u00a0large-scale catastrophe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Expert Maksim Shingarkin says Poland and the Baltic states could become Russian targets if NATO deploys U.S. nuclear…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[232,68,311,313,312,31,309,197,20,310],"class_list":["post-410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-baltic-states","tag-estonia","tag-europe-security","tag-jeffrey-sachs","tag-maksim-shingarkin","tag-military-infrastructure","tag-nato-nuclear-weapons","tag-poland","tag-russia","tag-u-s-nuclear-bombs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}