The Russian invasion of the Ukraine has upset the nuclear balance in Europe. The President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, announced on Thursday that “the transfer of Russian nuclear weapons” to its territory “has begun.” A deployment of tactical weapons in the satellite country that the leader of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, announced two months ago, just 30 days after suspending Russian participation in the last bilateral agreement he had with the United States for the control of nuclear weapons, the New Start. Minsk and Moscow have signed the protocols for the storage of weapons of mass destruction this Thursday, although the Belarusian president has played with ambiguity when he has been asked in the Russian capital if his country has already received the warheads: “It is possible . As soon as it arrives, I’ll see it.”
This rearmament has caused concern in the European Union. “Of course, this is not a step towards de-escalation. It is not a step to reduce tension, it is a step to increase it. It can be seen in the context of Russian aggression [a Ucrania] and the support of Belarus. We will closely monitor the development of the situation and respond as necessary ”, warned the spokesman for Foreign Affairs of the European Executive, Peter Stano.
The defense ministers of Russia and Belarus, Sergei Shoigu and Viktor Khrenin, respectively, sealed on Thursday the documents that define the procedures for keeping non-strategic nuclear weapons in a special warehouse. However, Moscow has emphasized that its control is the exclusive power of the Kremlin.
“Russia does not transfer nuclear weapons to the Republic of Belarus. Control over them and the decision on their use remain in the hands of Russia,” Shoigu said during the event, where he stated that “the implemented measures comply with all existing international legal obligations.”
Barely a month after pledging to Chinese President Xi Jinping that he would not provoke a nuclear escalation, Putin announced to the world in an interview on the evening of March 25 that he would deploy weapons of mass destruction in Belarus with the cooperation of the Minsk regime. The Russian president said his forces had already helped Belarus modify 10 planes to carry tactical nuclear bombs and provided Lukashenko with Iskander missile systems, also capable of mounting warheads. According to Putin, the construction of the tactical weapons warehouse was to be completed in record time: on July 1.
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“We are practical and fastidious people, so don’t worry about nuclear weapons, we are responsible,” promised Lukashenko, the same president who caused a migration crisis in neighboring countries of the European Union in 2021, months before the Russian invasion. from Ukraine. Minsk then allowed thousands of people from the Middle East and other parts of the world to enter, only to abandon them to their fate at the border with the Baltic countries and Poland. As affected governments tightened the borders to stem the sudden surge in migrants and asylum seekers, Minsk found an excuse for Russia to send nuclear bombers to patrol the territory.
Lukashenko admitted this Thursday in an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin that Putin calls the shots. “I’m not going to talk about the amount [de armas tácticas] nor its placement. We have agreed on the deployment of nuclear weapons, where and how much ammunition. It was necessary to make a decision, and the decision is made by the president of Russia,” said the Belarusian president, whose country accepted in the 1990s, like Ukraine, to get rid of weapons of mass destruction inherited from the Soviet Union in exchange for guarantees of security. But unlike Kiev, Lukashenko presented a reform of the Constitution at the end of 2021, endorsed in February 2022 —just a few days after the war began—, to allow the deployment of the Russian arsenal and, incidentally, shield itself in the can.
The Kremlin paved the way for this deployment of nuclear weapons with the suspension of the New Start agreement in February. The president then described Washington’s demand to supervise its nuclear silos – one of the key points allowed by the treaty and which had not been fulfilled by Moscow since the pandemic – as “theater of the absurd”. Despite the freezing of the agreement and the transfer of this type of Russian weapons to Belarus, the United States last week published a list with all its nuclear warheads “to show its commitment to responsible nuclear conduct.” The Joe Biden Administration called on Putin “to once again fully comply with the New Start treaty and with all the stabilizing transparency and verification measures contained therein.”
Moscow, for its part, will use the European rearmament sparked by Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine as a justification for its nuclear race. “In the context of the sharp escalation of threats on the western borders of Russia and Belarus, the decision was made to respond through the military-nuclear sphere,” the Russian Defense Minister settled on Thursday.
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