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MOSCOW: The Russian Foreign Ministry has called on the United States to withdraw nuclear weapons from European territory.

The statement comes in the wake of a media report, saying that the US is planning to spend approximately $214 million on upgrading and building military structures and installations on its air bases in Eastern Europe, Norway and Iceland as part of a "deterrence" initiative against Russia.

"Russia returned all its nuclear weapons to its national territory. We believe that the same should have been done by the American side a long time ago," Mikhail Ulyanov, director of the Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control at the Russian Foreign Ministry, told Sputnik.

However, according to him, Washington "continues to keep, according to estimates, up to two hundred aviation bombs in Europe."

"And they plan to modernize them in such a way that they become, according to a number of retired US military, 'more suitable for use' due to increased accuracy and reduction of destructive power. If it really is meant to place an additional number of nuclear warheads in Europe beyond what is available, this can only aggravate the situation," Ulyanov said.