Ukraine says Putin plan to deploy nuclear weapons will destabilize Belarus

A top security adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that Russia’s plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus would destabilize the neighboring country, which he said has been taken “hostage” by Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the decision on Saturday, sending a warning to NATO about its military support for Ukraine and escalating the stalemate with the West.

While the move was not unexpected and Putin has said he would not violate nuclear non-proliferation pledges, it is one of Russia’s most pronounced nuclear signals since the start of its invasion of Ukraine 13 months ago.

Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, called it “a step towards the internal destabilization of the country”, adding that it maximizes what he called the level of “negative perception and public rejection” of Russia and Putin. in Belorussian society.

“The (K)remlin has taken Belarus nuclear hostage,” he wrote on Twitter.

Putin compared his plans to the United States deploying its weapons in Europe and said Russia would not transfer control of the equipment to Belarus.

However, this may be the first time since the mid-1990s that Russia has been letting such weapons out of the country.

Another senior adviser to Zelensky scoffed at Putin’s plan, pointing out that the Russian leader is “too predictable”.

“Making a statement about tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, he admits that he is afraid of losing and all he can do is scare with tactics,” Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted.

The US, the world’s other nuclear superpower, played down concerns about Putin’s announcement and the potential for Moscow to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine.

“We have seen no reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture nor any indications that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon. We remain committed to the collective defense of the NATO alliance,” noted a senior US government official.

The official pondered that Russia and Belarus had been talking about the transfer of nuclear weapons for some time.

Analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in a note late Saturday that the risk of an escalation into nuclear war “remains extremely low”.

“ISW continues to assess Putin as a risk-averse actor who repeatedly threatens to use nuclear weapons without any intention of moving forward to break Western resolve,” they said.

However, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons called the announcement an extremely dangerous escalation.

“In the context of the war in Ukraine, the probability of miscalculation or misinterpretation is extremely high. Sharing nuclear weapons makes the situation much worse and risks catastrophic humanitarian consequences,” he assessed.

Putin complains about a Western “axis”

Vladimir Putin claimed that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko had been requesting the deployment of the weapons for a long time. There was no immediate statement from Lukashenko.

Although the Belarusian army has not formally fought in Ukraine, the countries have a close military relationship. Belarus allowed Moscow to use its territory to send troops to Ukraine last year and the two nations have stepped up joint military training.

Putin also denied on Sunday that he was creating a military alliance with Beijing and instead claimed that Western powers are building a new “axis” similar to the partnership between Germany and Japan during World War Two.

“That’s why Western analysts are talking about the West starting to build a new axis similar to the one created in the 1930s by the fascist regimes in Germany and Italy and militaristic Japan,” he pointed out.

It was a reprisal for a theme he often uses in his portrayal of the war – that Moscow is fighting a Ukraine under the rule of suspected Nazis, aided by Western powers that threaten Russia.

Ukraine – which was part of the Soviet Union and suffered devastation at the hands of Hitler’s forces – rejects these parallels as pretexts for a war of imperial conquest.

On the battlefield, the Ukrainian army has shown more optimism in recent days about the brutal months-long battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut.

Bakhmut is one of the main Russian targets as the country tries to fully capture the industrialized region of Donbass. At one point, Russian commanders expressed confidence that the city would soon fall, but these assertions subsided amid heavy fighting.

Ukrainian forces have managed to contain the offensive in and around Bakhmut, where the situation is stabilising, Commander-in-Chief General Valery Zaluzhniy said on Saturday.

The General Staff noted on Sunday that Ukrainian forces repelled 85 Russian attacks in the past 24 hours on various parts of the eastern front, including the Bakhmut area.