The week following Russia holding tactical nearly drills in its southern military district, near Ukraine, the Kremlin is alleging that NATO is secretly engaged in drills which seek to prepare for a potential nuclear strike on Russian territory.

General Vladimir Kulishov, First Deputy Director and Head of Russia’s Federal Security Service’s (FSB) Border Service has said the military has observed increase NATO military activity near Russia, which includes fresh nuclear drills.

He stated in an interview with state Ria Novosti news that “Near the Russian border, NATO’s reconnaissance activities are increasing, the intensity of operational combat training of the alliance’s troops is growing, during which scenarios for conducting combat operations against the Russian Federation, including the launch of nuclear strikes on our territory, are being worked out.”

File image: US Marines

Kulishov added: “The situation requires taking appropriate steps to protect and secure our borders.”

NATO itself has not confirmed that it is engaged in ‘nuclear drills’ near Russia, and it is unclear the degree to which Gen. Kulishov was merely speculating or perhaps ‘reading into’ things based on the serious threats from the West that Moscow currently perceives.

Putin’s Press Secretary, Dmitry Peskov, has also said separately “that NATO is flirting with military rhetoric, increasing the degree of escalation and falling into military ecstasy.”

At the same time, and to be expected, France’s Emmanuel Macron has added his voice to the growing chorus of NATO leaders who want to see restrictions lifted on Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons supplied by the West.

Macron said that his government’s position is that “we think we must allow (Ukraine) to neutralize the (Russian) military sites from which the missiles are fired.”

“If we tell (the Ukrainians) you do not have the right to reach the point from which the missiles are fired, we are in fact telling them that we are delivering weapons to you, but you cannot defend yourself,” he had explained late Tuesday while on an official visit to Germany.

On Monday NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the same. The increasing momentum for this policy change could culminate in Washington making an official announcement. Already some Biden admin officials have strongly hinted they’d be OK with Kiev using American weapons to strike inside Russia. Likely this is already happening, at least on a covert level.