TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The United States has once again sent nuclear weapons to England for the first time since 2008. According to a report by the UK Defence Journal on July 20, 2025, several B61-12 thermonuclear bombs have been moved to the Royal Air Force (RAF) Lakenheath base in Suffolk.
The location is believed to have new storage facilities that have been built in recent years. This delivery was carried out quietly amid increasing global tensions surrounding President Donald Trump's 50-day ultimatum to Vladimir Putin to stop the war in Ukraine.
The B61-12 bombs are known as gravity weapons dropped from the air, weighing about 320 kilograms, with a blast force more than twice that of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki during World War II.
Air Shipment from New Mexico
According to a report by Newsweek, this bomb delivery was carried out from the Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is the headquarters of the U.S. Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center. Flight tracking data shows that a U.S. military C-17 cargo plane flew for over 10 hours to England on July 16, then returned to the U.S. two days later.
"It looks like it went to England, dropped off those weapons and then it went back to regular operations in the U.S.," said William Alberque, former head of the NATO Nuclear Non-Proliferation Center. However, a U.S. Department of Defense official stated that the U.S. would not comment on the status or location of strategic weapons.
A spokesperson for the UK Ministry of Defense also stated that NATO and the UK's policy is neither to confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons at specific locations.
U.S. Nuclear Return to England
RAF Lakenheath was previously a storage site for U.S. nuclear weapons for several decades before 110 warheads were withdrawn in 2008. This withdrawal marked the end of 54 years of US nuclear presence in England.
However, according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) in their latest 2023 analysis, U.S. military budget documents suggest that the US Air Force plans to bring the nuclear weapons mission back to England. FAS stated that if this step is indeed taken, it would break the post-Cold War pattern of nuclear deployment that was focused towards southern Europe.
The U.S. is currently known to have about 200 B61 tactical nuclear weapons, with half of them deployed in five NATO countries, including Germany, Turkey, and Belgium. The completion of the B61-12 weapon modernization earlier this year also signifies the U.S.'s readiness to maintain tactical nuclear capabilities in Europe.
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