NATO has slammed Vladimir Putin for his “dangerous and irresponsible” nuclear rhetoric after the Russian president announced his country would deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
Putin said on Saturday that the deployment is similar to movements from the United States, which is stockpiling such weapons at bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey – an analogy Western allies have called “misleading”.
With fears of nuclear war mounting since Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, experts believe any Russian attack would likely involve small battlefield weapons, described as “tactical,” as opposed to “strategic” high-level weapons . long-range powered nuclear weapons.
Ukraine said it is seeking an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting to counter Russia’s “nuclear blackmail”.
“Ukraine expects effective measures from Britain, China, the United States and France to counter the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said on Sunday.
“We demand that an extraordinary session of the UN Security Council be convened immediately for this purpose,” she added.
NATO also joined in the criticism, with spokeswoman Oana Lungescu saying: “Russia’s reference to NATO’s nuclear sharing is completely misleading. NATO allies are acting in full respect of their international obligations.”
Lungescu also described Russia’s announcement as “dangerous and irresponsible”.
However, she said Western allies have yet to “see changes in Russia’s nuclear stance that would lead us to adjust our own.”
On Saturday, Putin announced that Russia would deploy tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring and allied Belarus “without violating our international nuclear non-proliferation agreements.”
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry accused Russia of violating its commitments and undermining the “nuclear disarmament architecture and the international security system in general”.
It called on “all members of the international community to convey to the criminal Putin regime the categorical unacceptability of its recent nuclear provocations”.
Susi Snyder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons told Al Jazeera that Russia’s deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus could potentially have “extremely catastrophic consequences”.
“It increases the risk of using nuclear weapons by adding more actors potentially capable of dropping nuclear bombs and creating a potential for chaos and miscommunication,” Snyder said.
“These weapons, if used, would have results similar to or greater than what we saw at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. They can do great catastrophic damage.”
‘Nothing unusual’
Putin said the move to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus was “nothing unusual”.
“The United States has been doing this for decades. They have long deployed their tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of their allies,” Putin said.
Putin said he spoke to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and they “agreed to do the same”.
Russia will begin training crews on April 3 and plans to complete the construction of a special tactical nuclear weapons storage facility by July 1.
Germany said the comparison was misleading.
“President Putin’s comparison with nuclear sharing in NATO is misleading and does not justify the move announced by Russia,” a foreign ministry official told AFP.
Experts said Russia’s move is significant as it has prided itself on not having deployed nuclear weapons outside its borders, unlike the US. It may be the first time this has happened since the mid-1990s.
‘scaremongering’
Putin has previously said nuclear tensions are “rising” around the world but will not deploy Moscow first.
Back in February 2022, Belarus allowed the Kremlin to launch its invasion of Ukraine from Belarusian territory.
Fears have since surfaced that Belarus could join its ally’s offensive, but President Lukashenko, a key Putin ally, said he would do so “only in the event of an attack”.
On Sunday, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov wrote on Twitter that “the Kremlin has taken Belarus as a nuclear hostage.”
He added that the move was “a step towards internal destabilization of the country”.
Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podolyak added: “[Putin] admits he’s scared of losing and all he can do is scare people.
The Russian leader said renewed talks with Lukashenko on the issue were spurred by a British official’s suggestion that depleted uranium weapons be sent to Ukraine.
Russia has “what it needs to answer” if western Ukraine were to supply such munitions, he added.
“Without exaggeration, we have hundreds of thousands of such shells. We haven’t used them yet.”