Kyiv and Berlin slam Putin’s plan to station nuclear weapons in Belarus – POLITICO

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that Moscow would place tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus has raised concerns in Kyiv and Berlin. Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, criticised the move as taking Belarus “as a nuclear hostage” in a tweet, while Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, claimed the move breached the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Putin denied this and likened the plans to the US stationing nuclear weapons in Europe. Germany compared the move to “nuclear intimidation”. The US confirmed it would not adjust its own nuclear weapons strategy.
Russia has previously used Belarus to stage troops for its invasion of Ukraine, and Moscow and Minsk have continued to maintain close military ties. 

Putin announced that Russia will construct a storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus by July, and that Russia would retain control of the arms stationed there. The US has stored tactical nuclear weapons in Europe for decades, he claimed. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson confirmed that although the US would monitor implications of Putin’s announcement, it had not seen any reason to adjust its own nuclear posture. Although the move is concerning, we have seen a surge in these types of moves since the pandemic began including large-scale military exercises and cyberwarfare, for example the recent cyber attack on the Colonial Pipeline in the US. 

Concerns are rising in central Europe, despite US assurances to the contrary. There is also an awareness that Moscow’s ambitions are not limited to Belarus and a potential fly zone agreement between Belarus and Russia. It is not clear why Moscow would place nuclear weapons in Belarus, given its close ties with Russia. Some observers also speculate about the possible future of Belarus, with a presidential election looming in 2023. Russia’s move is seen as a tactic to intimidate Belarusians by raising the spectre of a possible war, and one, crucially, that could involve the use of nuclear weapons.



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