Germany is not deploying new American atomic bombs on its territory, but is only replacing old components, TASS reported on Monday, September 28, citing a statement by German Ambassador to Russia Rüdiger von Fritsch.

“There is nothing new in this, that is, this is not an expansion of what is there,” the source said. He explained that we are talking about replacing those components and units whose service life has expired.

On September 22, the German television channel ZDF announced an investigation, during which journalists found out that the American authorities decided to place 20 American atomic bombs of the B61-12 type at the air base in the city of Büchel in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany. The TV channel relied on US budget documents, according to which, from the third quarter of this year, Washington has been allocating money to adapt bombs for German Tornado fighter-bombers.

Russian Foreign Ministry representative Maria Zakharova, in an interview with ZDF, called the US initiative a violation of Articles 1 and 2 of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. These articles indicate that countries that have nuclear weapons undertake not to transfer them to anyone, and states that do not possess nuclear weapons undertake not to accept them from anyone.

On September 23, Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said that US plans to transfer new atomic weapons to German territory will require retaliatory measures from Moscow. He did not specify which ones, but Interfax’s military-diplomatic source reported that we could be talking about the deployment of Iskander-M operational-tactical missile systems (OTRK) in the Kaliningrad region.

On September 24, US authorities called “inaccurate” information about the deployment of new American B61-12 atomic bombs in Germany in 2015. They indicated that mass production of such warheads would begin “no earlier than fiscal year 2020.”

A German diplomatic source for Kommersant said , in turn, that this is not about the transfer of new weapons to Germany from the United States, but “only about extending the service and ensuring the security of the previous arsenals located on the territory of Germany within the framework of NATO agreements.”

Germany explains reports of US deployment of atomic bombs