Russia Denies Moving Weapons to Key Outpost

Russia on Thursday sharply denied reports from Washington that its military forces have in recent years quietly transferred tactical nuclear weapons back into Moscow’s westernmost outpost, on the Baltic Sea.

“Dishonest sources of information” and “various secret intelligence services” are behind the reports that Moscow has moved short-range weapons to the enclave of Kaliningrad, said Capt. Anatoly Lobsky, head of the press center of the Russian Baltic Fleet. The reports were first published Wednesday in the Washington Times newspaper.

Later Thursday, Clinton administration sources were quoted by news services as confirming “indications of movement” of Russian nuclear weapons to a Kaliningrad naval base.

If short-range nuclear weapons were stored there, they could potentially pose an immediate threat to Poland--a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization--and the Baltic states, which regained their independence after the Soviet Union’s collapse.

But such a move would have little impact on the overall strategic balance between the United States and Russia. Despite arms control agreements, both countries have retained more than enough long-range nuclear weapons to ensure mutual destruction.

Lobsky called the anonymous reports gamesmanship and said their intent was to test Russian public opinion at a time when the Baltic states--Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia--are getting ready to join the Council of Europe and are pressing for NATO membership.

Vladimir Yegorov, former commander of the powerful Baltic Fleet and the newly elected governor of the Kaliningrad oblast, or region, was even more derisive.

“If it were April Fools’ Day, I would certainly appreciate the joke. But it is early January, and therefore it is a too dangerous joke,” he said. “I can say that there are no nuclear weapons on the Baltic Fleet.”

Yegorov said Kaliningrad remained nuclear-free: “No one has infringed on this situation [or] plans to,” he told the RIA news agency.

But some Russian military analysts were not so sure that the reports could be easily discounted.

“It would clearly be a wise strategic move to deploy tactical weapons in the Kaliningrad region,” reasoned Alexander I. Zhilin, a Moscow-based military analyst.

“It creates better opportunities for causing the so-called irreparable damage to enemy troops and dealing preemptive strikes, which raises the level of national security,” he said.

Zhilin said the decision might be linked to the character of President Vladimir V. Putin.

“He has already demonstrated to the world that he is a resolute man, that he cares about raising the level of Russia’s national security, but there is still no telling whether he is prepared to take it a step further,” Zhilin said.

Zhilin said it was possible that the story had been put out by those who hope to foster greater public support in the U.S. for the proposed antimissile national defense shield, which Russia opposes.

The Soviet Union stationed hundreds of tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of its East European allies during the Cold War, ready for battle with NATO. But after the Soviet collapse a decade ago, such weapons were supposed to be withdrawn into central areas of Russia.

Alexei V. Kuznetsov of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.