Ukraine war: Russia moves ahead with deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus
- The warheads are already on the move after Putin signed an order, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko says
- This is Moscow’s first deployment of such bombs outside Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union
Russia moved ahead on Thursday with a plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, whose leader said the warheads were already on the move, in the Kremlin’s first deployment of such bombs outside Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says the United States and its allies are fighting an escalating proxy war against his country after the Kremlin chief sent troops into Ukraine in February last year.
The plan for the nuclear deployment was announced by Putin in an interview with state television on Thursday.
“The collective West is essentially waging an undeclared war against our countries,” Putin’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said at a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart in Minsk, according to Russia’s defence ministry.
The West, Shoigu said, was doing all it could “to prolong and escalate the armed conflict in Ukraine”.
03:15
Ukraine calls for emergency UN meeting as Putin says Russia will deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said that tactical nuclear weapons were already on the move after he said Putin had signed an order, though there was no confirmation of that from the Kremlin itself.