The UK-led Joint Expedition Forces meanwhile, will reportedly practice the naval blockade and seizure of Kaliningrad exclave

France and Poland are preparing joint military exercises simulating conventional and nuclear strikes on Russia and Belarus, according to Polish media. Moscow has claimed that NATO will practice the blockade and seizure of Russia's Kaliningrad Region at the same time.

The Wirtualna Polska (WP) news outlet reported on Thursday, citing sources within the military, that the nuclear drills are set to take place "soon" over the Baltic Sea and northern Poland, and are meant to develop a "Polish-French military arm... outside of NATO bureaucracy" to deter supposed Russian aggression.

Moscow has consistently dismissed the claims as nonsense, stressing it has no intention of attacking any foreign states and accusing NATO of openly preparing for a military confrontation.

Under the scenarios, reportedly discussed during French President Emmanuel Macron's meeting with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk earlier this week, Polish F16 jets will conduct longrange reconnaissance and target identification, and will strike "highvalue targets in the vicinity of St. Petersburg" using conventional JASSMER cruise missiles.

French Rafale B fighters, armed with ASMP missiles carrying nuclear warheads, will also fly from France to the BudapestKaliningrad line and simulate nuclear strikes on targets in Russia and Belarus.

The planned exercises are described as part of Macron's push to extend the country's "nuclear umbrella" over other European states and expand France's nuclear potential. Russia has consistently condemned NATO for escalating tensions on the European continent, particularly through its increasing nuclear rhetoric.

Responding to the reported French-Polish nuclear drills, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that they "show Europe's aspiration for further militarization and nuclearization" and warned that such steps "do not contribute to stability and predictability on the European continent."

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko also said on Thursday that NATO's UK-led Joint Expedition Forces (JEF) has been practicing scenarios of a naval blockade and seizure of Russia's Kaliningrad Region and is "deliberately pursuing a path of increasing confrontation."

Meanwhile, the Finnish parliament took up a bill to allow the import and storage of nuclear weapons on the country's territory. The move would overturn legal barriers that had banned such devices in the country since the 1980s.

Moscow has warned that any deployment of nuclear weapons in Finland would be a direct threat to Russia and would trigger retaliatory measures.

Speaking exclusively to RT on Thursday, Andrey Kartapolov, chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, warned that Finnish lawmakers would be making a "big mistake" if they voted in favor of the bill. The arrival of foreign nuclear weapons in the Nordic country would significantly undermine its own security, according to the senior Russian MP.

The relevant military installations on Finnish soil would inevitably end up on Russian strategic forces' priority target list, Kartapolov predicted.

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(RT.com)