Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said that his deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, something he confirmed for the first time had already happened, was a reminder to the West that it could not inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.
Speaking at an economic forum in St Petersburg, Putin said that Russian tactical nuclear warheads had already been delivered to Belarus, but added that he saw no need to resort to nuclear weapons for now.
“As you know we were negotiating with our ally, [Belarusian] President [Alexander] Lukashenko, that we would move a part of these tactical nuclear weapons to the territory of Belarus. This has happened,” he said.
Photo: EPA-EFE / VYACHESLAV VIKTOROV / RIA NOVOSTI / SPUTNIK
“The first nuclear warheads were delivered to the territory of Belarus, but only the first ones, the first part. But we will do this job completely by the end of the summer or by the end of the year,” he said.
The move, Moscow’s first deployment of such warheads — shorter-range nuclear weapons that could potentially be used on the battlefield — outside Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union was intended as a warning to the West about arming and supporting Ukraine, the Russian leader said.
“It is precisely as an element of deterrence so that all those who are thinking about inflicting a strategic defeat on us are not oblivious to this circumstance,” Putin said, using a diplomatic term for a defeat so severe that Russian power would be diminished on the world stage for decades.
Lukashenko, a staunch ally of Putin, late on Tuesday said that his country had started taking delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons that included some three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan in 1945.
The US has criticized Putin’s decision, but said it has no intention of altering its own stance on strategic nuclear weapons and has not seen any signs that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon.
The Russian step is nonetheless being watched closely by Washington and its allies as well as by China, which has repeatedly cautioned against the use of nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine.
Putin said that talks with the West to reduce Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal, the world’s largest, were a nonstarter.
“Just talking about this [the potential use of nuclear weapons] lowers the nuclear threshold. We have more than NATO countries and they want to reduce our numbers. Screw them,” he said.
Meanwhile, a high-level African delegation was preparing to meet with Putin yesterday, a day after its calls for talks between Moscow and Kyiv were rebuffed by Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The diplomatic team had gone to Kyiv on Friday to voice the concerns of a continent that has suffered from the fallout of Russia’s invasion — in particular rising grain prices — with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa insisting “there should be peace through negotiations.”
Zelenskiy ruled out that possibility during a joint news conference with the delegates.
“I clearly said several times at our meeting that to allow any negotiations with Russia now that the occupier is on our land is to freeze the war, to freeze pain and suffering,” he told reporters.
Shortly after the African leaders’ arrival, air raid sirens sounded across the country as Russian missiles were detected, forcing the delegates to take shelter in the capital.
Additional reporting by AFP
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