“The Russian president Vladimir Putin it most likely made the decision to deploy nuclear weapons to Belarus before the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and likely chose to do so at this time to send a message to Ukraine’s Western allies,” the Institute for the study of war (ISW) in its latest update on the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.
The ISW predicted in January and February 2022 that Putin would seek to deploy tactical or strategic nuclear weapons in Belarus as part of a “broader effort to increase Russian control over the nation”. “He may have refrained from deploying weapons in Belarus at the beginning of the invasion – hypothesizes the US think tank – to reserve the possibility of doing so later, to send a further message to the West, with the aim of decreasing Ukrainian morale and Western aid and to decrease the effectiveness of a possible Ukrainian counter-offensive”.
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