(VOVworld) - A Russian Foreign Ministry official said on Wednesday that Moscow has the right to deploy nuclear weapons in the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine last year.

Nuclear payload on a trolley in a tunnel of the nuclear arsenal loading area at the Balaklava Naval Museum (submarine museum) in the Crimea (RIA Novosti / Mihail Mokrushin)

Mikhail Ulyanov, the Head of the Ministry’s Department on arms control, said that in principle Russia can put nuclear arms in any region on its territory including Crimea.

Ulyanov’s assertion comes as tension in the relations between Russia and the West escalate due to the Ukraine crisis and NATO conducting a multi-national naval exercise in the Black Sea just across the water from Crimea.
This is not the first time Russia has affirmed its right to deploy nuclear weapons in the Crimean Peninsula. Last year Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov delivered a similar statement during an Interfax interview.