Moscow---President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia would boost its nuclear arsenal by more than 40 intercontinental missiles this year, in a move slammed as "sabre-rattling" by NATO.
The declaration from the Kremlin strongman came as Russia reacted with fury to reports that the US is planning to bulk up its military deployments in eastern Europe, adding to tensions between Russia and the West, which have rocketed over the past year over the conflict in Ukraine.
"This year the size of our nuclear forces will increase by over 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles that will be able to overcome any, even the most technologically advanced, missile defence systems," Putin said at the opening of an exhibition of military hardware outside Moscow.
NATO head Jens Stoltenberg said Putin's remarks were part of a dangerous pattern of behaviour by Moscow.
"This nuclear sabre-rattling by Russia is unjustified, destabilising and it is dangerous," Stoltenberg said.
Putin said that Russia would defend itself if threatened, accusing NATO of "coming to our (Russia's) borders".
Russia has an estimated 7,500 nuclear warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, of which around 1,780 are deployed on missiles or at military bases.
The United States, in comparison, has some 7,300 warheads, of which 2,080 are deployed.
Poland and other countries in eastern Europe have been rattled by Russia's actions in Ukraine, where it annexed the Crimea peninsula in 2014 before pro-Moscow separatists began fighting Kiev's forces in the country's east.
Kiev and its allies accuse Moscow of sending in troops and heavy weapons to back the separatists, but Russia has denied the claims.
- Reports of US deployments -
NATO has moved to reassure Russia's nervous Eastern European neighbours, launching US-led drills in the Baltic states and Poland earlier this month.
The New York Times reported at the weekend that the Pentagon was poised to station heavy weapons for up to 5,000 American troops in several Eastern European and Baltic countries to deter Russian aggression.
This would be the first time since the end of the Cold War that the US has had heavy military equipment -- including battle tanks -- in newer NATO members that were under Moscow's influence in the Soviet era.
Poland said on Sunday it was in talks with the United States on Washington storing heavy weaponry on its soil.
US Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said F-22 fighter jets could be deployed to Europe as the standoff with Moscow rumbles on, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
AFP
