Poland has made an official request for the deployment of NATO nuclear weapons, Deputy National Defense Minister Pawel Zalewski said on Polish TV. He specified that it is an application for participation in the Nuclear sharing program. Earlier Belgium, Italy and Germany joined it.
“Poland also declared its readiness to participate in this program. And this application has not been withdrawn”, Zalewski noted. At the same time, he recalled that the decision on the use of nuclear weapons, in case of their deployment in Poland, will be made by the Americans.
Earlier, the President of the Republic Andrzej Duda said he was ready to deploy nuclear weapons in the country to strengthen the defense of NATO’s eastern flank. According to him, he discussed this topic during a visit to Washington. Duda explained the need for such a measure by the “militarization” of Kaliningrad region and the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus.
“President of Belarus” Aleksandr Lukashenko explicitly stated that the missiles obtained from Moscow could be directed against Poland, which he accused of planning an invasion of the country’s territory.In the recently adopted military doctrine, the authorities of the republic indicated that they would consider the deployment of nuclear and biological weapons on the territory of “unfriendly” neighboring countries, including Poland, as a military threat.
Nuclear sharing is an agreement between the U.S. and NATO allies on the transfer of nuclear weapons from U.S. storage bases in case of military necessity. Within the framework of the North Atlantic Alliance mission, the US has already deployed about 150 of its nuclear warheads on the territory of European states.
At the same time, NATO and the U.S. have previously publicly stated that they have no plans to deploy nuclear weapons in the bloc’s countries, which were part of Moscow’s sphere of influence before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Bloomberg wrote.
Russian “presidential” spokesman Dmitrii Peskov, commenting on Poland’s intention, warned that if these plans are realized, steps will be taken to ensure Russia’s security.
