According to Portal, the TASS news agency quoted Putin as saying that agreements on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons would not be violated. Belarus is one of Moscow’s closest allies. Initially, there was no information from Minsk.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has long raised the issue of stationing tactical nuclear weapons in his country, which borders Poland, Putin said. “We agree with Lukashenko that we will place tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus without violating the non-proliferation regime,” Putin was quoted as saying by TASS. Iskander missile complexes were also delivered to the neighboring country.
Response to delivery of uranium ammunition
On July 1, the construction of a nuclear weapons bay in Belarus will be completed, the Kremlin chief announced, adding that Russia will not transfer control of weapons to Minsk. According to a report by Russian news agency Interfax, Putin also announced that Belarus would station 10 aircraft capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons.
IMAGO/SNA/Viktor Tolochko Belarusian surface-to-air missiles
Tactical nuclear weapons have a shorter range than ICBMs. This is Russia’s response to tensions with NATO during Putin’s war with Ukraine. Specifically, it is a reaction to the possible delivery of uranium ammunition from Great Britain to Ukraine. Bullets with depleted uranium have a special impact, for example, to destroy tanks. “Without exaggeration, we have hundreds of thousands of these missiles,” Putin said. So far, however, they have not been used.
In the past, Putin has repeatedly urged the United States to strip Germany of nuclear weapons because Moscow sees it as a threat to its security. Russia is not deploying any strategic nuclear weapons in Belarus that could hit the United States, for example. The range of tactical nuclear weapons is several hundred kilometers.
1600 tanks for the war against Ukraine
According to Putin, Russia will also increase its own tank production. “The total number of tanks in the Russian army will exceed that of Ukraine by a factor of three, even more than three times.” While Ukraine will receive 420-440 tanks from the west, Russia will build 1,600 new tanks or modernize existing tanks. Former President Dmitry Medvedev had already announced the production of 1,500 tanks this week.
Putin also said that Russia could produce three times the amount of ammunition that western Ukraine wants to supply. The national arms industry is developing at a fast pace. However, the Kremlin chief stated that he did not want to overly militarize his own economy. Russia has been waging a war of aggression against Ukraine for over a year.
In fact, a government commission has already been created in Moscow to ensure that the economy meets the needs of the military. While the Russian economy is suffering severely from Western sanctions, the defense industry has been working at full speed for months.
5,000 Wagner mercenaries pardoned
Meanwhile, in Russia, more than 5,000 ex-convicts have been pardoned after serving as Wagner’s mercenaries in Ukraine. They have fulfilled their contracts for the mercenary force, its founder and boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said on Saturday. He recruited thousands of convicted criminals from prisons for deployment in Ukraine.
The Wagner units, which operate largely autonomously from the Russian military command, play an important role in Russia’s war against its neighbor, which has now lasted more than a year. They became key support after the Russian regular army suffered a series of defeats last year.
“To date, more than 5,000 people have been pardoned and released after fulfilling their contracts with Wagner,” Prigozhin said in an audio clip posted on the Telegram news service. Only 0.31 percent of those pardoned committed crimes after serving in Wagner units, Prigozhin said.
London: Attack near Bachmut stopped
According to British intelligence services, the Russian attack on the city of Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, is practically at a standstill. “This is likely to be primarily a result of the significant losses suffered by Russian forces,” the British Ministry of Defense said on Saturday. Russia is now focusing more on the city of Avdiivka and the northern front section of Bakhmut.
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What would the end of the war in Ukraine look like?
“The situation for the Russians has probably also worsened due to tensions between the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Wagner Group, both of which are positioned on this section of the front.” Ukraine also suffered heavy losses in the month-long battle for Bakhmut, it was emphasized in London.
According to the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Army Valery Zalushny, Bakhmut’s defenders strengthened their positions. “Thanks to the titanic efforts of the defensive forces, the situation can be stabilized,” Zalushny said. The section around Bachmut is still one of the more difficult front sections.
symbolic meaning
According to London, Russia has now shifted its focus more towards the town of Avdiivka in the south and onwards near Kreminna and Svatove to the north of Bakhmut. The Russians wanted to stabilize the front there, it was said. This indicates that Russian troops would generally be more defensively positioned after attempts at a full-scale offensive have not produced any “conclusive results” since January.
The fight for Bachmut has been going on for half a year. On the Russian side, mainly mercenaries from the Wagner unit fought in the area. Russian attackers have already surrounded the city on three sides – north, east and south – and are trying to cut off the last supply routes to the Ukrainian garrison to the west. Recently, however, they have failed to make any progress.
For both parties to the conflict, Bakhmut’s conquest or defense has however become symbolic. The city, in which about 70,000 people lived before the start of the war, was almost completely destroyed by the fighting. According to official Ukrainian data, only about 4,000 civilians currently live there.
Zelenskyy complains of “lack of ammunition”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the military situation in the embattled east as “not good”. The reason is the “lack of ammunition”, said Zelenskyy in an interview with the Japanese newspaper “Yomiuri Shimbun”, published on Saturday. On starting a possible counter-offensive, he said: “We can’t start yet.” Without tanks and artillery, “not a single brave soldier” could be sent to the front.
According to the newspaper, Zelenskyy made clear the serious shortage of weapons. “We are waiting for ammunition to arrive from our partners,” he said, adding that the Russian military fires three times as much ammunition as Ukrainian forces every day. The newspaper gave the interview on March 23 on the train, as Zelenskyy was returning to the capital, Kiev, after a visit to the southern region of Kherson, close to the front. He had previously visited the eastern regions of Donetsk and Kharkiv.