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Germany accuses Putin of Cold War reflexes after Moscow beefs up nuclear arsenal

Russian officials have denounced a plan by Washington to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO states in Eastern Europe, on or near Russia's borders, as the most aggressive act by Washington since the Cold War.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin is acting with Cold War reflexes, Germany's foreign minister said on Wednesday, after Moscow decided to add more than 40 intercontinental ballistic missiles to its nuclear arsenal.

"President Putin's announcement to stock up Russia's strategic missile arsenal is unnecessary and certainly doesn't contribute to stability and an easing of tension in Europe," Frank-Walter Steinmeier told German news portal Spiegel Online.

Russian officials have denounced a plan by Washington to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO states in Eastern Europe, on or near Russia's borders, as the most aggressive act by Washington since the Cold War.

A German government spokesman also criticised Putin's announcements. "They are not a helpful way to overcome the present difficulties that exist in the relationship between Russia and Europe or Russia and the United States," Steffen Seibert told a regular news conference in Berlin.

Steinmeier added that the world had changed since the end of the Cold War in 1989: "But the old reflexes from this time are evidently more alive than what we thought up until last year." "I can only warn against giving in to such reflexes and entering into a rapid spiral of escalation of words and then acts," he said.

Tension has flared between Russia and the West over Moscow's role in the Ukraine conflict. Pro-Russian separatist forces have seized a large part of the country's east after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Steinmeier said it was important that the Ukraine crisis did not tear down the peace in Europe that has been built up with so much care and effort since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.  

Also Read: Don't be afraid of Russia, Putin tells West

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