Russia says Polish discussion on hosting US nuclear weapons is dangerous

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Thursday that Poland was playing a "very dangerous game" by considering the possibility of hosting U.S. nuclear weapons.

Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Thursday he had invited Prime Minister Donald Tusk for talks on May 1 about the possibility of nuclear weapons from NATO states being deployed in Poland.

Duda has reiterated his position that Poland would be ready for such a possibility, prompting Tusk to say he would like a clarification from the president.

Russian state news agency RIA quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying that such discussions were provocative.

"If they follow the path of further escalation - and this is how the discussions can be assessed, these so far verbal games with nuclear weapons - then a further round of tension will occur. And in general, this game is very dangerous, its consequences may be hard to predict," he said.

The war in Ukraine has plunged relations between Russia and the West to their most dangerous point since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the United States and the Soviet Union came close to a nuclear confrontation.

Russia last year said it was deploying tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, which borders Poland, as a signal of deterrence to the West. Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday that dozens were now in place.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said any U.S. nuclear missiles in Poland could become targets in the event of a Russia-NATO war.

"It is not difficult to assume that if American nuclear weapons appear on Polish territory, the corresponding objects will immediately join the list of legitimate targets for destruction in the case of direct military conflict with NATO," she told reporters at her weekly briefing.

(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov in Moscow and Alan Charlish in Warsaw, writing by Mark Trevelyan)