Moscow took Minsk as a “nuclear hostage” after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, the Ukrainian government said yesterday, as it blasted a plan that would bring the arms to a country at the gates of the EU.
Putin, who has issued thinly veiled warnings that Russia could use nuclear weapons if threatened, said the move was similar to the US transferring weapons to allies.
“The Kremlin took Belarus as a nuclear hostage,” Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov wrote on Twitter.
Photo: AP
He added that the move was “a step towards the internal destabilization of the country.”
On Saturday, Putin announced Russia would station tactical nuclear weapons to neighbor and ally Belarus “without violating our international agreements on nuclear non-proliferation.”
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak accused the Russian leader of breaching such obligations.
Putin “admits that he is afraid of losing and all he can do is scare” people, Podolyak wrote on Twitter.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power for almost 30 years, is a key Putin ally.
In February last year, Minsk allowed the Kremlin to launch its invasion of Ukraine from Belarusian territory.
Fears have since risen that Belarus might join its ally’s offensive, but Lukashenko said he would do so “only if attacked.”
In an interview broadcast on Saturday, Putin said the move to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus was “nothing unusual.”
“The United States has been doing this for decades. They have long placed their tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of their allies,” Putin said.
Putin said he spoke to Lukashenko, adding that they agreed “to do the same.”
Russia would start training crews on Monday next week and is planning to finish the construction of a special storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons by July 1, he said.
Putin has previously said that nuclear tensions were “rising” globally, but that Moscow would not deploy first.
He said renewed discussions with Lukashenko on the issue were spurred by a British official’s suggestion to send depleted uranium weapons to Ukraine.
Russia would respond if the West supplied Ukraine with such ammunition, he added.
“Russia of course has what it needs to answer. Without exaggeration, we have hundreds of thousands of such shells. We have not used them yet,” Putin said.
He said depleted uranium weapons “can be classified as the most harmful and hazardous for humans ... and also for the environment.”
Depleted uranium munitions are highly effective at piercing armor plate, but the metal is toxic for the soldiers who use them and civilians in areas where they are fired.
The Central Weather Bureau could issue a sea alert for Super Typhoon Mawar, as it is forecast to turn north and come closest to Taiwan from Tuesday to Wednesday next week. Mawar was downgraded from a super typhoon to a typhoon after sweeping across Guam on Wednesday night, knocking down trees and leaving much of the US territory without power. Many residents of Guam yesterday remained without power and utilities after Mawar tore through the remote US Pacific territory the previous night, ripping roofs off homes, flipping vehicles and shredding trees. There were no immediate reports of deaths and injuries, but the
ADJUSTMENTS: Over the next five years, every year except 2026 would have only one makeup workday to compensate for national holidays, the government said The Executive Yuan (EY) yesterday announced the official workday calendar for next year, which includes one makeup day and four holidays with more than three days off. It also announced new standards for makeup days in the event of consecutive holidays. The Directorate-General of Personnel Administration cited the importance of the Lunar New Year and Tomb Sweeping holidays to the public as its reason to mandate flexible off-days. The 115 total off-days dovetail with dates that international financial markets are closed, minimizing the effects of state holidays on stock and currency exchange trading, it said. Over the next five years, only the calendar for
Police on Sunday said they are on alert after the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) invited an alleged top leader of a Japanese criminal organization to visit Taiwan. The party and a branch of the Hongmen society reportedly invited Joji Uezu from the Kyokuryu-kai, the only yakuza group in Okinawa designated by Japanese police, to visit Taiwan along with six other people. Members of Taiwan’s Bamboo Union (竹聯幫) have reportedly participated in events hosted by the Kyokuryu-kai as early as 2015. The Okinawa Times in 2018 reported that Chang Wei (張瑋), son of former Bamboo Union leader and CUPP founder Chang An-le (張安樂),
INVASION UNPOPULAR: Chinese would likely accept their government having a softer stance toward cross-strait relations, one of the coauthors of the article said Interest among the Chinese public in the issue of China’s unification with Taiwan is low, researchers said, citing the results of a poll. An article titled “Assessing Public Support for (Non-)Peaceful Unification with Taiwan: Evidence from a Nationwide Survey in China,” published in the Journal of Contemporary China on May 14, showed that only 55 percent of those surveyed in China would support the use of military force to achieve unification with Taiwan. In the survey, which polled 1,824 people on the question of how they would like to see the issue of Taiwan’s unification with China resolved, “only one out of
RSS