1)"US Nukes"
2)There are nuclear missiles in Eastern Europe. Otherwise the demand to remove those missiles or have nuclear missiles put up in cuba, would make no sense.
Yup.
Putin’s primary worry has long been that missile launchers now deployed in Romania and soon, if not already, in Poland (ostensibly for anti-missile defense) can accommodate Tomahawk cruise missiles with ranges that put Russia’s strategic forces in jeopardy. Putin has voiced that concern loudly for years.
For example, after the US-orchestrated coup in Kiev in Feb. 2014, Putin explained publicly that US/NATO plans to deploy ABM systems around Russia’s western periphery were an "even more important factor" in Moscow’s decision to annex Crimea than the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO.
At a press conference, Putin began with a reminder that Russia had been "conned" when the West promised in 1990 not to move NATO one inch eastward. Putin then pointed out that, after the US withdrew from the AMB Treaty:
"Now anti-ballistic missiles are deployed in Romania and are being set up in Poland. … These are MK-41 launchers that can launch Tomahawks. In other words, they are no longer just counter-missiles, and these assault weapons can cover thousands of kilometers of our territory. Isn’t that a threat to us?"
What about similar deployment to Ukraine? The U.S. has already agreed not to do that. Western media largely missed this, but Russia’s readout of the Dec. 30 telephone conversation between Biden and Putin included this:
“… Joseph Biden emphasized that Russia and the US shared a special responsibility for ensuring stability in Europe and the whole world and that Washington had no intention of deploying offensive strike weapons in Ukraine.” [Emphasis added.]
The US "non-paper" that was revealed by El Pais, was labeled "confidential", and small wonder. Clearly, the Biden administration did not want its concession on inspection, for example, to leak. It will come as a shock for those predicting (some of them actually hoping for) the worst. Washington’s non-paper expresses willingness to discuss "a transparency mechanism to confirm the absences of Tomahawk cruise missiles at … sites in Romania and Poland." In other words, verification; which has worked well in the past – with the INF Treaty, for example, which saw the entire class of intermediate- and short-range missiles destroyed.
Obviously there's some questions that need answering here, apart from the fact that the claim that the US won't put strategic missiles in Ukraine is bullcrap:
1) The US sold NATO on those systems because the were ostensibly a defense against Iran. Is the US now admitting that they aren't against Iran, but against Russia?
2) If they are against Iran - which no one believes - why not remove them if Russia wants then gone? Everyone knows Iran is not going to attack Europe.
3) If they are against Russia, why would the US remove the nuclear warhead option and leave the Tomahawks reduced to conventional warheads? Doesn't that remove the whole point of their being there? Does Washington really believe that 24 interceptors can defeat a Russian missile attack on Europe? A hypersonic missile attack? If so, where is the evidence? If they can't, then clearly they were put there as a first-strike strategic weapon - which is precisely what Russia believes.
4) This leads to the obvious conclusion that the US has no interest whatsoever in removing the Aegis Ashore systems. Instead, it's going to try to drag out talks in an attempt to convince Russia to allow the US to see its missile technology inside Russia. This is what "verification" means.
