"Russian missiles pose a danger": NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg sounded the alarm in a Nov. 23 interview with Corriere della Sera, by Maurizio Caprara, three days before the "incident" in the Azov Sea that threw gasoline on the already flaming tension with Russia. "There are no new missiles in Europe. But Russian missiles, yes," says Stoltenberg, while hiding two facts.

First: starting from March 2020, the United States will begin to deploy in Italy, Germany, Belgium, Holland (where the nuclear bombs B-61 are already deployed), and probably in other European countries, the first precision-guided nuclear bomb of their arsenal, the B61-12, mainly targeting Russia.  The new bomb has an ability to penetrate and explode underground, so it can destroy command center bunkers in a first strike.

One can imagine how the United States would react if Russia deployed nuclear bombs in Mexico, close to U.S. territory.

Since Italy and the other countries, in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, make bases, pilots and planes available to the U.S. for the deployment of nuclear weapons, Europe will be exposed to greater risk since it is on the first line of the growing confrontation with Russia.

Secondly, a new U.S. missile system was installed in Romania in 2016, and a similar one is being installed in Poland. The same missile system is installed on four warships that, stationed by the U.S. Navy in the Spanish base of Rota, cross the Black Sea and Baltic Sea near the Russian territory.

Both the ground installations and the ships are equipped with Lockheed Martin Mk 41 vertical launchers, which - the manufacturer specifies - can launch "missiles for all missions: both SM-3 for defence against ballistic missiles, and long-range Tomahawk missiles for attacking ground targets"; the latter can also be armed with a nuclear warhead.  

Since Moscow cannot verify which missiles actually exist in launchers approaching Russian territory, it must assume that there are also nuclear attack missiles. This violates the INF Treaty, which prohibits the installation of ground-based short-range and intermediate range missiles.

In 2014, the Barack Obama administration accused Russia, without bringing any evidence, of having tested a cruise missile (SSC-8) of the category prohibited by the Treaty, announcing that "the United States is considering the deployment of ground-based missiles in Europe," that is, the U.S. will abandon the INF Treaty.

The plan, supported by NATO's European allies, was confirmed by the Donald Trump administration: In fiscal year 2018 Congress authorized the financing of a research and development program for a cruise missile launched from the ground by a mobile platform on the highway.

Nuclear missiles such as the Euromissiles, deployed by the U.S. in Europe in the 1980s and eliminated by the INF Treaty, are able to reach Russia. Similar nuclear missiles deployed in Russia can reach Europe but not the United States. Stoltenberg himself, referring to the SSC-8 that Russia is supposed to have deployed on its territory, states that they are "able to reach much of Europe, but not the United States."

That's how the United States "defends" Europe.

Finally, what is really grotesque is Stoltenberg's statement that, attributing to Russia "the very dangerous idea of limited nuclear conflicts," warns, "All atomic weapons are risky, but those that can lower the threshold for their use are particularly risky."  

This is exactly the warning given by U.S. military experts and scientists about the B61-12, which are about to be deployed in Europe: "Less powerful and more precise nuclear weapons increase the temptation to use them, even to use them first instead of in retaliation."

Why doesn't Maurizio Caprara interview these scientists?