Plans to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia raise many questions pertaining to non-proliferation, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

The leaders of AUKUS (Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States) earlier announced a three-phase plan to provide Canberra with conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines and the technology for building them.

“In any case, this gives rise to a lot of questions, which pertain to the issue of non-proliferation. Of course, there must be an extra degree of transparency here and answers should be provided for all questions that arise,” Peskov stressed.

Under the plan, the first Aukus-class submarine, or SSN-AUKUS, a modified version of the UK’s Astute-class submarine, will be built in Great Britain in the late 2030s. Australia, in turn, is expected to build its first SSN-AUKUS boat in the early 2040s on the basis of US and UK technologies.

Source: Agencies