The Kremlin warned on Tuesday that a preliminary decision by NATO member Lithuania to lift its constitutional ban on keeping nuclear weapons on its territory could lead to a new round of escalation in the region. Lithuania’s parliament voted in favor of lifting the ban on Tuesday, in one of two votes needed for the change. Asked how Russia viewed the development, as well as the proposal put forward by US President Donald Trump to build a US military base in the Baltic country, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said:
“If the military infrastructure of what is actually the main NATO country (the USA) is approaching our borders, then, of course, this cannot be perceived as anything other than a step towards escalating tensions. The same applies to the deployment of nuclear weapons on the territory of a neighboring state. None of these developments will contribute to stability and predictability on the European continent; on the contrary, they will, to our great regret, mark another significant escalation of tensions,” he said.
Lithuania, a member of the EU and NATO, borders Russia and Moscow's close ally Belarus. The United States has maintained an armored battalion of nearly 1,000 troops there since 2019. The legal revision of the nuclear weapons ban, which requires a two-thirds majority in two parliamentary votes to take effect, is expected to lift bans put in place more than three decades ago after Lithuania broke away from the Soviet Union.
