The Kremlin said on Friday that Estonia's stated readiness to host NATO allies' US-made F-35A stealth jets, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, posed a direct threat to Moscow.
Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur told the Postimees news outlet on Thursday that Estonia --which borders Russia and is a rotating base for NATO jets tasked with protecting Baltic airspace-- was ready to host nuclear-capable jets if necessary.
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Russia sees Estonia’s willingness to host nuclear-capable NATO aircraft as a direct threat to its security, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
ReplyDeleteResponding to recent remarks made by Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur welcoming such deployments, Peskov warned that the presence of F-35 fighter jets in the Baltic region would be considered a serious provocation. He criticized Tallinn’s stance as “absurd,” adding that relations with Moscow “can hardly get any worse.”
Pevkur told local media that F-35s, which are capable of being equipped with nuclear weapons, “have already been in Estonia and will soon return again in rotation,” and expressed the country’s readiness to accommodate allied forces using such aircraft.
The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have hosted NATO fighter rotations since joining the military bloc in 2004. Their airspace is patrolled by allied aircraft due to limited domestic capabilities. NATO’s eastern expansion has long been a point of contention for Russia, which accuses the West of breaking post-Cold War assurances.
During this week’s NATO summit in The Hague, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer confirmed the planned purchase of at least 12 F-35A jets, thus restoring the UK’s airborne nuclear deterrent for the first time since the 1990s.
Although the US, UK, and France are the only official nuclear powers within NATO, American nuclear weapons remain stationed in several non-nuclear allied countries. Moscow claims that US-led training of NATO pilots for nuclear missions violates the spirit of non-proliferation agreements.
Citing the need to counter rising threats from NATO near its borders, Russia deployed tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus and held joint drills with Belarusian forces last year.