Russian Plans on Stationing Tactical Nukes in Belarus
Jose Nino
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On March 25, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on the Rossiya-24 news channel that Russia will deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus at its neighbor’s request. Putin made this announcement in response to the United States’ efforts to move more weapons into its NATO allies’ territories.
“Even out of the context of these events, this statement (about the possible supply of depleted uranium shells by the UK to Ukraine – TASS), Alexander Grigorievich Lukashenko has long raised the issue of deploying Russian tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus,” Putin declared.
The Russian president emphasized that “there is nothing unusual about this.”
“The United States has been doing this for decades. They placed their tactical nuclear weapons on the territories of their allied countries, NATO countries, in Europe a long time ago. In six states – these are the Federal Republic of Germany, Turkey, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Greece – well, in Greece there aren’t [tactical nuclear weapons] now, but there is a storage facility,” Putin added.
Putin called attention to how Russia is not transferring such weapons to Belarus, just as the US does not transfer them to its allies.
“We are actually doing everything that they have been doing for decades,” Putin noted, bringing attention to how the Americans routinely “deploy these weapons, prepare carriers, and train crews”, per a TASS report.
“We are going to do the same, this is exactly what Alexander Grigoryevich asked for,” the Russian leader said in a concluding remark.
Belarus is clearly in the Russia camp now. In the post-Cold War era, Belarus initially used a multi-vector foreign policy to play Russia and the West against each other in order for it to extract as many benefits as possible. However, things have changed as the West has become more woke and fanatic on foreign policy. The simple fact is that the US and its satrapies in the European Union and NATO won’t tolerate an authoritarian country like Belarus to have a presence on the European continent.
As a result, Belarus has fallen into Russia’s arms. In Russia’s case, it may have some grievances with Belarus but it recognizes its value in putting pressure on NATO’s eastern flank. For Belarus, Russia is a country that won’t subvert or use color revolutions against it. All told, both countries will be attached at the hip in this era of renewed great power competition.
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