Ukraine has called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council after President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would station nuclear weapons in Belarus.
The secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, Oleksiy Danilov, wrote that Russia has taken Belarus “nuclear hostage.”
putin’s statement about placing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus – a step towards internal destabilization of the country – maximizes the level of negative perception and public rejection of russia and putin in Belarusian society. The kremlin took Belarus as a nuclear hostage.
— Oleksiy Danilov (@OleksiyDanilov) March 26, 2023
The United States has stationed nuclear weapons outside of its borders for decades. Russia has refrained from doing so — until now.
“This is not in the category of ‘escalation to scare us,’ it’s more ‘what they have always wanted to do and now Belarus is not in a position to resist anymore,” said Keir Giles, the author of a forthcoming report on Russia’s nuclear threat.
“There’s a long tradition of Putin saying what he wants Belarus to do and claiming ‘Belarus asked us,’ but not a peep about it from Minsk,” he said.
“We have not seen any changes in Russia’s nuclear posture that would lead us to adjust our own,” it said. “We are committed to protect and defend all NATO allies.” NATO added that Moscow had “consistently broken its arms control commitments,” most recently suspending its participation in the New START Treaty — a key nuclear arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia, the world’s two largest nuclear powers.
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former commanding officer of Britain and NATO’s joint chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear regiment called the plan a “strategic error” and “another sign of desperation coming out of the Kremlin,” after 13 months of war in Ukraine and few victories to show for it.
Strategically, the placement of nuclear weapons in Belarus by Russia is of little advantage. The weapons will almost certainly be tactical with a limited range of fewer than 500 miles. This makes Putin’s gambit more of a distraction than a serious threat.
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Russian forces have been trying to take Bakhmut for months — a crossroads in eastern Ukraine that has taken on outsize importance because of Moscow’s supreme effort to capture it. Russian forces — largely units associated with the Wagner Group — appear to have stalled.
But stationing nuclear weapons of any range outside of Russia’s borders is a clear escalation and will worry several NATO nations on the perimeter of Ukraine.
Moving such weapons closer to NATO nations like Germany, Poland and Lithuania was likely to “hasten Western weapons” to Ukraine, he said. Germany, which has previously been cautious about providing military aid to Ukraine, “might be encouraged” by the potential threat of closer nuclear weapons, he added.
De Bretton-Gordon agreed. “Belarus is now a target in a nuclear standoff, an unintended consequence Lukashenko has not fully appreciated,” he said, adding that the announcement might embolden opposition voices in Belarus, who have long been against the war.
As you might expect, the weak Belarus opposition is strenuously objecting.
And Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled Belarus in 2020 after standing against Lukashenko in a disputed presidential election that led to widespread protests across the country, took to Twitter Sunday to complain about the deal.
She said the deal had been announced on “Freedom Day — when Belarusians celebrate the 105th anniversary of Belarus’ independence,” saying that this was “not accidental.”
This is Putin trying to remind the U.S. and NATO that he could choose to go nuclear at any time — another reason for Biden to do everything he can to find a way to end the fighting as soon as possible.
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