Alexander Lukashenko said that he will give nuclear weapons to nations that are ready to “join the Union of Russia and Belarus”.
Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, spoke to the cameras on Sunday on the state-run Russia 1 channel. “No one minds that Kazakhstan and other countries have the same close relations as we do with the Russian Federation. It’s very simple. Join the Federal State of Belarus and Russia. That’s it – there will be nuclear weapons for everyone“, He said.
Signed in 1999, the Agreement on the Establishment of the Federal State of Belarus and Russia established the legal basis for a broad alliance that included economic, information, technological, agricultural and border security, among other things, between the two countries, according to the Belarusian government’s website.
Lukashenko’s comments about handing out nuclear weapons to like-minded people are likely to heighten concerns as Moscow threatens the world with its own nuclear arsenal as the war against Ukraine falters. He also said that the transfer of some tactical nuclear weapons from Russia to Belarus has begun, following an agreement signed by Moscow and Minsk. “It was necessary to prepare warehouses and so on. We’ve done all of this. Therefore, the movement of nuclear weapons began” Lukashenko said, the state news agency Belta reports, CNN writes.
He also promised the safety of the weapon, saying: “It is not even discussed. Don’t worry about nukes. We are responsible for this. These are serious questions. Everything will be fine here.” Putin said Russia would retain control of any tactical nuclear weapons stationed in Belarus and compared the move to Washington’s practice of stationing nuclear weapons in Europe to prevent host countries, such as Germany, from violating their commitments as non-nuclear powers.
Belarus has not had nuclear weapons on its territory since the early 1990s. Shortly after gaining independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it agreed to transfer all Soviet-era weapons of mass destruction stationed there to Russia.
Since invading Ukraine more than a year ago, Putin has repeatedly used escalating rhetoric, warning of the “increasing” threat of nuclear war and suggesting Moscow may abandon its “no first use” policy.
Putin said in March that Moscow would complete the construction of a special storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus by early July, and said that Russia had already transferred to Belarus the Iskander short-range missile system, which can be fitted with nuclear or conventional warheads.
Tactical nuclear weapons are smaller than strategic nuclear weapons—which can decimate entire cities—and are designed for limited battlefield use. However, their explosive yield is still sufficient to cause major destruction as well as radiation contamination.
The United States and the European Union, as well as opposition leaders in Belarus, condemned the move to deploy Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. “It’s the latest example of irresponsible behavior we’ve seen from Russia since its all-out invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago.“, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Thursday.
Miller added that despite the transfer report, the US sees “no reason to adjust our strategic nuclear posture” and said there is no “an indication that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons“. The EU called the agreement between Moscow and Minsk “a step that will lead to further extremely dangerous escalation”.
And the adviser to the Ukrainian president, Mykhailo Podolyak, wrote on Twitter on Sunday that Lukashenko’s words “directly indicate that the Russian Federation is deliberately ‘killing’ the concept of global nuclear deterrence and ‘burying’ the key Global Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons”.
“This fundamentally undermines the principles of global security. There can be only one solution: a firm stand by the nuclear states; relevant UN/IAEA resolutions; extensive sanctions against (Russian state nuclear energy company) Rosatom; systemic financial sanctions against Belarus and finally against Russia,” said Podoljak.
Members of the Belarusian opposition also criticized the deal, with exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tsihanouska saying in a tweet that “we must do everything we can to prevent Putin’s plan to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus“. “It directly violates our constitutional non-nuclear status and would ensure Russian control over Belarus for years to come. And it would further threaten the security of Ukraine and all of Europe,” she said.
(WORLD)