- Russia signs nuclear weapons stockpile deal with Belarus
- The storage facility should be completed by July 1st
- Russia stationed nuclear weapons in Belarus
- Lukashenko says guns are on the way
MOSCOW, May 25 (Portal) – Russia on Thursday advanced a plan to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. The Russian leader said the warheads were already on their way. This was the first deployment of such bombs by the Kremlin outside of Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
President Vladimir Putin says the United States and its allies are engaged in an escalating proxy war against Russia after the Kremlin chief sent troops to Ukraine in February last year.
Putin announced the plan for the use of nuclear power in an interview with state television on March 25.
“The collective West is essentially waging an undeclared war against our countries,” Putin’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart in Minsk, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
According to Shoigu, the West is doing everything “to prolong and escalate the armed conflict in Ukraine”.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said tactical nuclear weapons were already in use after saying Putin had signed an order, although there was no confirmation of this from the Kremlin itself.
“The movement of nuclear weapons has already begun,” Lukashenko told reporters. When asked if the guns were already in Belarus, he said: “Possibly. When I come back I’ll check.”
Shoigu said the documents he signed in Minsk concerned the process of storing tactical nuclear weapons at a special facility in Belarus.
Putin has repeatedly warned that Russia, which possesses more nuclear weapons than any other country, will use any means necessary to defend itself, and has portrayed the war in Ukraine as a struggle for Russian survival against an aggressive West.
The United States and its allies say they want Ukraine to defeat Russian forces on the battlefield but deny they want to destroy Russia — and deny the Ukraine war is in any way related to post-Soviet NATO expansion.
It is still unclear exactly when Russian tactical nuclear weapons will be deployed in Belarus, which borders three NATO members – Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. Russia will continue to control the weapons.
Tactical nuclear weapons are nuclear weapons that are used for specific tactical purposes on the battlefield and are therefore typically less effective than the strategic nuclear weapons designed to destroy the largest cities in the United States or Russia.
When it comes to tactical nuclear weapons, Russia vastly outnumbers the US and the NATO military alliance: the US estimates that Russia has about 2,000 such operational tactical warheads.
The United States has around 200 such tactical nuclear weapons, half of which are based in Europe. These 12-foot B61 nuclear bombs, with yields ranging from 0.3 to 170 kilotons, are deployed at six air bases in Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Shoigu said that Iskander-M missiles, which can carry conventional or nuclear warheads, have been handed over to the Belarusian armed forces and some Su-25 aircraft have been converted for the possible use of nuclear weapons.
“The Belarusian soldiers have received the necessary training,” Shoigu was quoted as saying by his ministry. He said the two countries could take further measures to ensure their security.
“NATO’s military activities have become as aggressive as possible,” Shoigu said.
The United States has said the world faces its greatest nuclear threat since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis because of Putin’s comments during the Ukraine conflict, but Moscow claims its position has been misinterpreted.
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, signed by the Soviet Union, states that no nuclear power can transfer nuclear weapons or technology to a non-nuclear power, but allows the weapons to be used outside its borders but under its control.
reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Mark Trevelyan; Edited by Peter Graff and Hugh Lawson
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Guy Faulconbridge