Britain To Add Warheads Of Nuclear Weapons, Russia: Illegal!

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. (Wikimedia Commons/UK Prime Minister's Office)

JAKARTA - Russia's Ambassador to Britain, Andrei Kelin, has accused the British government of violating its international treaty commitments, along with plans to upgrade its nuclear arsenal. And, calling the Moscow-London political relationship 'almost dead'.

This is in line with the UK's published foreign and defense policy review, endorsed by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday last week.

Britain says it needs to upgrade its nuclear weapons, in the face of a growing global security threat. To that end, Britain plans to increase the upper limit of its stockpile of nuclear warheads, from 180 to 260.

While on foreign affairs, the review also identified Russia as the most acute threat to British internal security in the Euro-Atlantic area.

The Kremlin expressed regret over Britain's nuclear decision, which was judged to endanger international stability. Meanwhile, Russia's Foreign Ministry described the move as a serious blow to international arms control.

In an interview with London-based LBC Radio Station, Sunday, March 21, Russia's Ambassador to Britain Andrei Kelin said the UK plan appeared to be illegal.

"You increase the number of warheads by 40 percent. This is a violation of the international nuclear agreement and many, many other treaties which states, only a decrease or reduction in the number of nuclear warheads," Kelin told LBC.

The Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Britain has ratified, entered into force in 1970. The British government has said its plans do not violate the pact.

Russian news agencies quoted Kelin as saying political relations between London and Moscow, which have been strained from events from the imprisonment of opposition politician Alexei Navalny to the poisoning of Russian double agents and his daughter in 2018, were 'near death'.

Quoting from Kalen, they said that only cultural and economic ties remained. The LBC quoted him as saying the last time he spoke to UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was in December 2019.