Russia will begin deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus following the completion of special storage facilities on 7 and 8. This will be the first deployment of such warheads outside of Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Putin announced in March that he had consented to deploy such weapons in Belarus, citing the decades-long deployment of tactical nuclear weapons by the United States in several European nations.
Putin told Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, over a meal at the Russian leader’s vacation residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, that the planned nuclear deployment was proceeding according to schedule.
Also Putin stated, according to a transcript of his remarks released by the Kremlin, that the preparation of the relevant facilities will conclude on July 7-8, after which “we will immediately begin activities related to the deployment of appropriate types of weapons on your territory.”
Lukashenko said: “Thank you, Vladimir Vladimirovich.”
Putin claims that the United States and its Western allies are arming Ukraine as part of a growing proxy war aimed at bringing Russia to its knees, more than 15 months into the largest land conflict in Europe since World War II.
Putin, 70, portrays the conflict as a fight for Russia’s survival in the face of an allegedly expanding NATO. He has warned the West that Russia will not retreat.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has promised to join NATO shortly and expel all Russian troops.
Both the United States and its NATO allies in Europe, as well as China, which has repeatedly warned against the use of nuclear weapons in the conflict, are intently monitoring Putin’s nuclear move.
The United States has criticized Putin’s deployment of nuclear weapons but has stated that it has no intention of changing its position on strategic nuclear weapons and that it has seen no indications that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons.
Moscow and Washington agree that the war in Ukraine has triggered the most severe crisis in relations since the height of the Cold War, with key nuclear arms control treaties unraveling and both sides publicly denouncing the other.
Putin’s nuclear comments have sparked heightened concern.
He warned the West last September that Russia will use “all available means to protect Russia and our people.”
It is currently unknown where in Belarus the Russian nuclear warheads, which will remain under Moscow’s jurisdiction, will be stored.
Range of 500 kilometers
Putin, the ultimate decision-maker for any nuclear launch, stated that Belarus has already received Iskander mobile short-range ballistic missiles that can deliver nuclear warheads. Russian sources claim the Iskander’s range is 500 kilometers.
Belarus reported that Su-25 aircraft were modified to transport the warheads. The range of the Sukhoi-25 aircraft is up to 1,000 kilometers.
If launched from Belarus’s main air base near Minsk, the delivery trucks might reach most of Eastern Europe. Including numerous NATO nations plus Berlin and Stockholm.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States exerted tremendous efforts to return the Soviet nuclear weapons stationed in Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan to Russia, which inherited the Soviet nuclear arsenal.
