Donald Trump has ordered the positioning of two nuclear submarines in “appropriate regions” in response to what he described as “highly provocative statements” from Russia.
The US president cited the pronouncements from Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia’s security council, for his most significant action against Moscow since returning to office.
“I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that,” Trump wrote in a social media post on Friday.
“Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances,” he added.
The deployment comes ahead of a fresh deadline next week imposed by Trump for Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine or face tighter US sanctions.
In response to the new deadline, Medvedev, a former Russian president, wrote on X “each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war”.
Trump wrote at midnight on Thursday that Medvedev should “watch his words” and was “entering very dangerous territory!”
Medvedev then wrote in a Telegram post that the US president’s words show that “Russia is completely right and will continue on its chosen path”.
“He might as well recall his favourite films about the ‘walking dead’, and also remember how dangerous the mythical ‘Dead Hand’ can be,” Medvedev added, with a laughing emoji.
Dead Hand is the Russian system that will launch nuclear missiles if the country’s leaders have been killed by a strike from another nation.
Once regarded in the west as a reform-minded leader, Medvedev, who served as a stand-in president for Putin between 2008 and 2012, has posted increasingly inflammatory comments on social media since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including references to the country’s nuclear arsenal.
The movements of the US’s nuclear capable submarines were not typically announced publicly, said James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“On a day-to-day basis there is a ton of capability already in the Atlantic and the Pacific able to hit Russia,” said Acton, who cautioned that “we don’t know” whether that has been a change to the US nuclear posture.
The US president has grown increasingly frustrated with his Russian counterpart’s refusal to engage with peace efforts in Ukraine, complaining that while the two leaders have “nice conversations”, Moscow continues to attack Ukraine.
Erik Raven, former under-secretary of the US Navy, said: “What this message signals is likely less about US military readiness, and more about what the president wants Russia to know: he is personally not happy about the lack of meaningful progress on peace talks on Ukraine, and the message is being sent not with subtlety but with a sledgehammer.”
Trump on Tuesday said Russia had 10 days to halt the fighting, and threatened Moscow with “severe” tariffs, as well as secondary sanctions against countries that buy Russian oil.
In spite of the threat, Russia on Thursday launched its second-deadliest attack of the war, with waves of drones and missiles hitting the Ukrainian capital, killing at least 11 people and injuring more than 100.
The aerial bombardment came after a third round of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia last week ended with both sides agreeing they had made no significant progress towards a ceasefire.
On Thursday the US president repeated his threat to sanction Russia, though he wondered aloud whether it would have any effect on Putin.
“We’re going to put sanctions. I don’t know that sanctions bother him,” Trump said at the White House.
He added that what Russia was doing in Ukraine is “disgusting”.
Earlier on Friday, without mentioning Trump or his deadline, Putin said: “As for any disappointments on the part of anyone, all disappointments arise from inflated expectations. This is known as a general rule.”
“In order to approach the issue peacefully, we need to have detailed conversations and not in public,” he added.
The Pentagon referred questions to the White House, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
As he left the White House on Friday evening, Trump told reporters: “We just have to be careful. A threat was made by a former president of Russia, and we’re going to protect our people.”
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