Russia will station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday, sending a warning to NATO over its military support for Ukraine and escalating a standoff with the West.
Although not unexpected and while Putin said the move would not violate nuclear non-proliferation promises, it is one of Russia’s most pronounced nuclear signals since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine 13 months ago.
The United States – the world’s other nuclear superpower – has reacted cautiously to Putin’s statement, with a senior administration official saying there were no signs Moscow planned to use its nuclear weapons.
Putin likened his plans to the US stationing its weapons in Europe and said that Russia would not be transferring control to Belarus. But this could be the first time since the mid-1990s that Russia were to base such weapons outside the country.
“There is nothing unusual here either: firstly, the United States has been doing this for decades. They have long deployed their tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of their allied countries,” Putin told state television.
“We agreed that we will do the same – without violating our obligations, I emphasize, without violating our international obligations on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.”
Tensions have grown over the war in Ukraine after heavy supplies of Western weaponry to Kyiv and Moscow shifting its rhetoric on its military operation away from “demilitarisation” of its neighbour to fighting “the collective West” there.
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NATO’S THRESHOLD
Putin did not specify when the weapons would be transferred to Belarus, which has borders with three NATO members – Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. He said Russia would complete the construction of a storage facility there by July 1.
“This is part of Putin’s game to try to intimidate NATO … because there is no military utility from doing this in Belarus as Russia has so many of these weapons and forces inside Russia,” said Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists.
It was also unclear where in Belarus the weapons would be stationed. The transfer would expand Russia’s nuclear strike ability along NATO’s eastern border.
Although the Kremlin has never publicly confirmed it, the West has long being saying that Russia keeps nuclear-capable missiles in Kaliningrad, its Baltic coast exclave between NATO and European Union members Poland and Lithuania.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons called Putin’s announcement an extremely dangerous escalation.
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