POLAND is open to the United States deploying nuclear weapons on its soil, the country’s president has said.
Andrzej Duda said the NATO member wanted to be part of the alliance’s nuclear sharing scheme, as Russia warns of a military clash with America over its support for Ukraine.
Britain and France are the three NATO nations with nuclear weapons but Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Turkey all host US around 100 B-61 bombs under the scheme.
“There is always a potential opportunity to participate in nuclear sharing. The topic is open.”
The Polish president didn’t specify who he’d spoken to in the US government about hosting nuclear weapons.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the ruling Law & Justice Party, has in the past said that his country was “open” to hosting US nuclear weapons.
“We have spoken to American leaders about whether the US is considering such a possibility,” he said.
The move would certainly draw a response from Vladimir Putin, who has said Russia will respond to any expansion of the alliance’s military capabilities in its former back yard.
Already Russia has warned US supplies of weapons to Ukraine to help the country fight its war with Putin's invaders to increases the risk of conflict with the America.
The country’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, said it was an "immediate threat" to Moscow.
He warned that the US decision "to continue pumping the Kiev regime with heavy weapons only secures Washington's status as a participant of the conflict".
This would result in "protracted bloodshed and new casualties", he added.
"We call on Washington to stop its provocative actions that could lead to the most serious consequences," the Russian ambassador said.
It’s feared Putin may turn the war in Ukraine nuclear by detonating a bomb on the border in a message to the West.
Russia has been rattling its nuclear sabre as its forces continue to be pushed back even as Moscow declared four regions as their own.
Its biggest submarine, Belgorod, which can be armed with "apocalypse" nuclear torpedoes is on the move, and there have been reports a convoy linked to a nuclear unit on the move in Russia.
And now the world waits with bated breath to see if Putin will make good on his threats as his army suffered furthering humiliating defeats yesterday as Ukraine storms towards Kherson.
In a televised rant in September Putin made a thinly veiled nuclear threat to the West warning "this is not a bluff".
Poland is NATO’s largest member from the former Warsaw Pact and is one of the most vocal proponents of bolstering the alliance’s eastern flank.
But the US and NATO have publicly stated that they have no plan to deploy nuclear weapons in countries that joined the alliance after the collapse of communism more than three decades ago.
The Biden administration is seeking to walk a fine between supplying Ukraine with advanced weaponry while avoiding moves that would cause the Kremlin to further escalate the conflict.
