Russian lawmaker urges moving nuclear weapons closer to US

A Russian lawmaker on Saturday called for his country to place nuclear weapons in “friendly countries” close to the United States.

Aleksey Zhuravlev, a senior member of Russia’s parliament (Duma), made the suggestion as a response to Washington’s alleged plans to move some of its own tactical nukes to Europe.

On Friday, the London Telegraph reported that Pentagon documents it had obtained revealed the U.S. is planning to station nuclear weapons in the U.K. due to the threat of Russia aggression. Newsweek could not independently verify the Telegraph report, and the Pentagon was contacted via email on Monday night for comment.

The Russian foreign ministry in September warned the U.S. that placing nuclear weapons in the U.K. would be considered an escalation by Moscow that could result in “countermeasures” from Russia’s forces.

In a post on Telegram, Zhuravlev noted the U.K. already has its own nuclear weapons and that the U.S. already has deployed nuclear arms in other European countries.

“Therefore, it’s unlikely that additional deployment [of nuclear weapons to the U.K.] would have an effect on the military-political landscape,” Zhuravlev wrote.

Even still, he urged the Kremlin to consider deploying nuclear weapons closer to the U.S. by placing them in “friendly countries like Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.”

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Ministry of Defense via email on Monday for comment.

Zhuravlev, who serves as the first deputy chairman of the Russian parliamentary defense committee, added that “weapons systems are rapidly advancing” and are “very different” from those possessed during 1962’s Cuban Missile Crisis.

“So Russian hypersonic missiles from our territory will reach the United States faster than subsonic ones from the American underbelly,” he said. “And there are also our submarines, which are generally unknown where they are in the world’s oceans, and strategic aviation—we have something to respond to any attempts of the United States and the NATO it controls.”

Zhuravlev is known for making provocative statements, and he frequently does so during appearances on Russian state television. One example of this came in January 2023, when suggested attacking Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, as she visited Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.

“Baerbock walks around Kharkiv. What, don’t we know where she is? What, don’t we have high-precision weapons? What is she doing there?” Zhuravlev said during a political talk show broadcast on the Russia-1 channel.

A few months later in May, Zhuravlev said Russia would need an army of at least 3 million soldiers in order to defeat Ukraine.

“You see, it’s impossible they [Ukrainians] are mobilizing everyone. A million, two, three. It’s not a person, it’s an armed person, on the front line,” Zhuravlev said on Russia-1. “It is impossible to go with 400-500k people where 3-4 million are needed. You can say whatever you want, but it’s true.”