KYIV: Ukraine’s top security official on Sunday denounced Kremlin’s plans to station tactical atomic weapons in Belarus, saying Russia was taking its ally as a “nuclear hostage.” But Moscow said it was making the move in response to the West’s increasing military support for Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the plan in a television interview aired on Saturday, saying it was triggered by a UK decision this past week to provide Ukraine with armour-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium. Putin argued that by deploying its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russia was following the lead of the US. He noted that Washington had nuclear weapons based in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.
“We are doing what they have been doing for decades, stationing them in certain allied countries, preparing launch platforms and training their crew,” he said. Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, tweeted that Putin’s announcement was “a step towards internal destabilisation” of Belarus that maximised “the level of negative perception and public rejection” of Russia and Putin in Belarusian society.
The Kremlin, Danilov added, “took Belarus as a nuclear hostage.” Belarus shares borders with three NATO members — Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Russia used Belarusian territory as a staging ground to send troops into neighbouring Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Both Lukashenko’s support of the war and Putin’s plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus have been denounced by the Belarusian Opposition.
Tactical nuclear weapons are intended for use on the battlefield and have a short range and low yield compared with the much more powerful nuclear warheads fitted to long-range missiles. “Russia plans to maintain control over the ones it sends to Belarus and construction of storage facilities for these will be completed by July 1,” Putin said.
Russia has stored its tactical nuclear weapons at dedicated depots on its territory, and moving part of the arsenal to a storage facility in Belarus would up the ante in the Ukrainian conflict by placing these closer to Russian aircraft and missiles already stationed there.
In Germany, the foreign ministry called it a “further attempt at nuclear intimidation.” The ministry went on to say that “the comparison drawn by President Vladimir Putin to NATO’s nuclear participation is misleading and cannot be used to justify the step announced by Russia.”