MOSCOW, July 26. /TASS/. Incendiary steps being taken by the US to increase military activity under the pretext of containing the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) destabilize the situation on the Korean Peninsula, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing.

"We are closely monitoring the situation on the Korean Peninsula," she noted in relation to the recent stopover of US nuclear submarines in South Korean ports. "The situation there continues to heat up mainly because the US, together with the Republic of Korea and Japan, is boosting military activity within the framework of the so-called strategy of extended deterrence of the DPRK," the diplomat explained.

She noted that the Russian side had repeatedly stressed the "danger of Washington’s policy of constantly upping the ante with the engagement of strategic military potential which is precisely what is shaping this atmosphere of instability in that region."

"Such confrontational steps provoke escalation and an arms race, run counter to political and diplomatic efforts toward a peaceful settlement of nuclear and other issues in the subregion," Zakharova concluded.

A joint demonstration of force

On Monday, the USS Annapolis, an American nuclear-powered submarine, arrived at a South Korean naval base in Jeju City, this coming a week after the USS Kentucky, a US nuclear-armed strategic submarine, entered the South Korean port of Busan. Regular visits by US nuclear submarines with ballistic missiles and aircraft carriers to the Republic of Korea as well as bomber flights displaying deterrence capabilities are being performed in compliance with the Washington Declaration approved by US President Joe Biden and his South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk Yeol this April.