Escalation watch: France tests nuclear-capable missile as West ramps up war rhetoric
As war rhetoric from the UK and its Western European allies continues to boil over, France has test-fired a new nuclear-capable ballistic missile, which President Emmanuel Macron says will make his country “feared” on the global stage. RT’s ‘Escalation Watch’ is tracking the propaganda in real time.
The test-launch came less than a day after German foreign intelligence chief Martin Jaeger accused Moscow of waging a “shadow war” against Germany, and warned of a “real and imminent threat” of “a violent conflict with Russia.”
In Moscow’s eyes, the only threats have come from the West, where Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski recently called for a buildup of NATO troops at the border of Kaliningrad, after military exercises that the Kremlin views as preparations for a blockade of the Russian exclave.
Last week, three Russian embassies warned that Russia is willing to use its entire arsenal, “including nuclear weapons,” if NATO takes military action against Kaliningrad or blockades the Russian exclave. The Kremlin described the statement as an attempt to “cool down hot heads” in Europe.
Tensions are currently high after a period of intense fearmongering from British officials and journalists last month, in which retired generals told the BBC that the public must be “psychologically prepared” for conflict with Russia, and former Brexit Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg told British men and women that they “may have to die” in a cataclysmic European war.
This was a marked shift in rhetoric from the British elite. Since 2022, five successive prime ministers have insisted that the UK will arm Ukraine “for as long as it takes” to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, but only a handful of bellicose generals and analysts have predicted an imminent military clash with Moscow. The tactical situation has not changed, and Russia has repeatedly insisted it has no interest in a wider conflict with NATO, but talking heads from both the Labour and Conservative parties are now speaking of war as a done deal.
Britain’s political and media class also attempted to spin the arrest of five men near a US airbase last week as an “attack” on the country, until the men were let go after counterterror police found no explosives, and apparently no evidence of a terrorist plot. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Andy Burnham pinned the blame on Iran, forcing Tehran to issue a sharp condemnation of the “malicious speculations published by some British individuals and media outlets.”
On the continent, Spain’s El Mundo claimed that the CIA had learned of a potential Russian plan to launch drones at France, Italy, or Spain from ships in the Mediterranean. The claim, attributed to Lithuanian intelligence, was quickly shot down by Paris and Rome, as Finnish President Alexander Stubb appealed for calm across the West.
The stakes – and the likelihood of miscalculation – are high. RT is watching and listening, and debunking the most outrageous war propaganda in real time.
LIVE UPDATES HAVE ENDED
06 October 2026
14:13 GMTAnd with that, we’re closing live updates for the moment. We’ll be keeping an eye on the Fairford case in the UK, and watching for reactions to Macron’s missile provocation. For more on these stories, stick with RT.
- 13:20 GMT
In the UK, counterterror police have just arrested a seventh suspect in connection with the supposed ‘terror plot’ at RAF Fairford. The suspect is described as a 22-year-old male British national.
Police said that he was arrested “on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts,” and that their investigation remains “live.”
Six suspects already arrested in connection with the incident have been released on bail, and police have found nothing at the scene suggesting an imminent terrorist attack on the US airbase. Nevertheless, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said that “we believe Iran to have played a part.”
- 13:01 GMT
Lithuanian politicians have been talking about lifting this ban for months, with little discussion of the potential consequences. Should tensions between Russia and a nuclear-armed Lithuania escalate into open nuclear conflict, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned last month, “no other countries would fight for them.”
“The well-known Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the treaty that created NATO, would not be triggered,” he continued. “Lithuania would vanish from the map of the world.”
As Russian International Affairs Council President Dmitry Trenin wrote for RT last week, NATO’s Article 5 does not automatically guarantee US intervention if one member becomes involved in a conflict.
- 12:34 GMT
Russia has not turned a blind eye to Western nuclear expansion. As the world’s largest nuclear power, Russia cannot view the deployment of atomic weapons on its borders “as anything other than a step toward escalating tensions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this morning.
Peskov was responding to the Lithuanian parliament’s vote to remove a constitutional ban on hosting nuclear weapons on its soil, which took place earlier today. Although Lithuania has not signed on to France’s “forward deterrence” plan, Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas has expressed interest in hosting American nukes in Lithuania.
- 12:20 GMT
France’s nuclear expansion is just one facet of the country’s ongoing remilitarization. The French defense budget has doubled since 2017, and in August, Macron signed off on adding an additional €36 billion to France’s €413 billion 2024-2030 military budget.
However, France is broke. Macron’s 2026 budget envisages €310 billion in new borrowing, and overshoots EU spending rules. French national debt now stands at 119% of GDP, with little to no economic growth on the horizon to reduce that figure.
Meanwhile, Macron’s tax hikes and spending cuts have triggered mass protests across France, which degenerated into student- and immigrant-led riots last week.
- 12:03 GMT
With the US taking a more hands-off approach to Europe under NATO’s new ‘NATO 3.0’ doctrine, Macron has seized the opportunity to position France as the continent’s foremost nuclear power. Outside the US, France possesses NATO’s only independent nuclear arsenal, which Macron is currently modernizing and expanding.
In 2025, France authorized about €27.6 billion in nuclear deterrence-related spending, up from €4.5 billion in 2024. Most of this money will be spent on multi-year submarine, missile, and warhead contracts, but a substantial sum will go toward Paris’ controversial “forward deterrence scheme.”
Under this scheme, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Poland, and Sweden will host French nuclear weapons and take part in French nuclear exercises.
- 11:38 GMT
Welcome back to RT’s ‘Escalation Watch’, and bonjour from the Atlantic Ocean, where French President Emmanuel Macron watched the launch of France’s latest submarine-launched ballistic missile, the nuclear-capable M51.3.
The M51.3 is the latest iteration of France’s 16-year-old M51 missile family. However, the test was notable not for the missile’s specifications, but for how Macron chose to milk it for propaganda value.
“Today we are stronger. The message has been sent loud and clear for wherever it must be received,” Macron said in a video posted on social media. “To be free, we must be feared,” he said in a speech a day earlier. “And to be feared, we must be powerful.”
The missile was fired west into the north Atlantic, but the message was aimed east toward Moscow.
05 October 2026
15:52 GMTNATO’s actual plan to deter “Russian aggression” is far more primitive than anything spelled out in Grynkewich’s report: keep Ukraine juiced with money and weapons to serve as a sacrificial shield for a Europe that it’ll never be allowed join.
That’s according to Finland’s Stubb, who describes Ukraine as “a buffer zone” and an “impediment” against Russia.
Seven years after Kiev gave away its neutrality and wrote its goal of NATO membership into its constitution, this is how the bloc views Ukraine.
- 15:39 GMT
NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Alexus Grynkewich, is working on a plan to defeat Russia in the event of a hypothetical invasion, Bloomberg has reported. The document, titled ‘Theory of Victory’ will be presented during Grynkewich’s visit to Poland next Monday.
While NATO is keeping the contents of the plan under wraps, Bloomberg claims that it will focus on AI and drones as key technologies in “defeating” Russia. While Grynkewich’s office described the plan as “purely defensive,” the fact that it is being publicized is a statement in itself.
The plan’s focus on AI suggests that NATO’s most senior commanders are as taken with the technology as Ukraine’s defense chiefs. However, as RT explored in depth this summer, Kiev’s AI fanaticism left the country open to predatory grifting by Silicon Valley defense contractors and dangerously short on funds for conventional weapons.
- 15:26 GMT
Here’s another example of the same doublespeak from French President Emmanuel Macron. Russia expanded its missile and drone campaign to include key economic and dual-use targets as a direct response to Zelensky’s so-called “influence campaign” of strikes against Russian civilian infrastructure.
But it’s Russia that’s responsible for “intimidations and escalation,” Macron says, after speaking to Zelensky and apparently promising him more weapons.
