The Russian envoy to Minsk announced on Sunday that Russia would move its tactical nuclear weapons near Belarus’ western borders, putting them at NATO’s border and likely escalating the standoff between Moscow and the West.
President Vladimir Putin announced on March 26 that Russia will deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, sending one of the country’s most overt nuclear signals since the start of its invasion of Ukraine a little more than a year ago.
The two Slavic neighbors, who are officially a “union state,” have been in discussions for years to further integrate. This process has accelerated in the wake of Minsk’s approval for Moscow to use Belarusian territory to send soldiers into Ukraine in 2014.
Boris Gryzlov, the Russian envoy to Belarus, said on Belarusian state television that the weapons “will be moved to the western border of our union state and will increase the possibilities to ensure security. Despite the commotion in Europe and the United States, this will be done.” Gryzlov did not specify the location of the weapons, but he did affirm that a storage facility will be finished by July 1 as per Putin’s directive and then moved to the west of Belarus.
Belarus shares borders with Lithuania, Latvia, in the north and Poland to the west. These countries are all a part of NATO’s Eastern flank, which has been bolstered with more soldiers and military hardware as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The prospect that Russia might deliver strategic nuclear weapons to Belarus has drawn alarm from the United States and other allies of Kiev, with the US President Joe Biden describing it as “worrisome.” Belarus would permit Russia to station ICBMs there as well, according to President Alexander Lukashenko, who made the statement on Friday.
