FAS reported possible damage to a nuclear bomb at a US base in Europe

One of the American nuclear bombs stored at the US military base in the Netherlands could have been damaged, writes The Guardian, citing a report by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).

The attention of scientists was attracted by a photograph in which American soldiers inspect a damaged B61 thermonuclear bomb. Judging by the photo, the back of the bomb was twisted due to impact, and one of the tail fins was missing. The hole caused by the damage was sealed with electrical tape.

This image was included in a 2022 presentation to job-seekers at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, one of the US’s nuclear weapons facilities. The photo was taken, according to scientists, at the Volkel air force base in the Netherlands – one of six bases in Europe where such bombs are stored.

At the same time, scientists point to the lack of official confirmation that the bomb in the photo is combat, and not training, and also that the photo was taken on this base.

“It is US policy that we can neither confirm nor deny the presence or absence of nuclear weapons in any general or specific location, including specific exercises or operations in the real world,” a US Air Force representative in Europe commented to the report.

According to The Guardian, there are six American bases in Europe, where a total of about a hundred B61 bombs are stored. In addition to the Netherlands, they are also located at US bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy and Turkey. The flight crews of these countries and Greece are trained to install them on aircraft and use them.

Arms control advocates have long argued that B61 bombs are militarily obsolete and need to be removed from Europe. The administration of former US President Barack Obama even considered such a possibility, but a number of European countries opposed it, and after the reunification of Russia and Crimea, it was decided to abandon this idea.