NATO fighter jets have been certified to carry thermonuclear weapons “earlier than anticipated” as part of their “deterrence commitments.”
Last week the deputy chairman of Russia’s security council, Dmitry Medvedev warned NATO that Moscow “has no more red lines.”
Medvedev also warned that tensions between the US and the West are more serious now than during the Cuban Missile crisis in 1962.
The NATO F-35A Joint Strike Fighter will now carry the B61-12 thermonuclear gravity bomb.
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A spokesperson for the F-35 Joint Program Office told Breaking Defence, “The F-35A is the first 5th generation nuclear-capable aircraft ever, and the first new platform (fighter or bomber) to achieve this status since the early 1990s.
“This F-35 Nuclear Certification effort culminates 10+ years of intense effort across the nuclear enterprise, which consists of 16 different government and industry stakeholders.”
They added, “The F-35A achieved Nuclear Certification ahead of schedule, providing US and NATO with a critical capability that supports US extended deterrence commitments earlier than anticipated.”
Colonel-General Vladimir Zarudnitsky, the head of the Russian army’s Military Academy of the General Staff warned that war is “significantly increasing” across Europe which “cannot be ruled out.”
The Russian publication Military Thought published Colonel-General Zarudnitsky’s comments.
Russian state news agency RIA reported, “The possibility of an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine – from the expansion of participants in ‘proxy forces’ used for military confrontation with Russia to a large-scale war in Europe – cannot be ruled out.”
He added, “The likelihood of our state being purposefully drawn into new military conflicts is significantly increasing.”
He said that the “anti-Russian policy” of the US and their allies is the source of military threat to Russia.
