Putin plans battlefield nuke stash in Belarus

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans Saturday to station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, a warning to the West as it steps up military support for Ukraine.

Putin said the move was triggered by Britain’s decision this past week to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium.

Tactical nuclear weapons are intended for use on the battlefield and have a short range and a low yield compared with much more powerful nuclear warheads fitted to long-range missiles. Russia plans to maintain control over those it sends to Belarus, and construction of storage facilities for them will be completed by July 1, Putin said.

He didn’t say how many nuclear weapons Russia would keep in Belarus. The U.S. government believes

Russia has about 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons, which include bombs that can be carried by tactical aircraft, warheads for short- range missiles and artillery rounds.

Putin argued that by deploying its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russia was following the lead of the United States, noting that the U. S. has nuclear weapons based in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.

“We are doing what they have been doing for decades, stationing them in certain allied countries, preparing the launch platforms and training their crews,” Putin said, speaking in an interview on state television that aired Saturday. “We are going to do the same thing.”

Russia has stored its tactical nuclear weapons at dedicated depots on its territory, and moving part of the arsenal to a storage facility in Belarus would up the ante in the Ukrainian conflict by placing them closer to the Russian aircraft and missiles already stationed there.

Some hawkish commentators in Russia long have urged the Kremlin to put the tactical nuclear weapons close to the weapons to send a signal to the West about the readiness to use them.

The U. S. said it would “monitor the implications” of Putin’s announcement.

“We have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture nor any indications Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said. “We remain committed to the collective defense of the NATO alliance.”

Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine had Soviet nuclear weapons stationed on their territory but handed them over to Russia after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Putin said Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has long asked to have nuclear weapons in his country again as a counter to NATO. Belarus shares borders with three NATO members — Latvia, Lithuania and Poland — and Russia used its territory as a staging ground to send troops Feb. 24, 2022, into neighboring Ukraine.

The Russian president noted that his country helped modernize Belarusian military aircraft last year to make them capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Putin said 10 such planes were ready to go.

He said nuclear weapons also could be launched by the Iskander short-range missiles that Russia provided to Belarus last year.

Putin had initially objected to the depleted uranium rounds that Britain promised to ship to Ukraine by making the false claim that they have nuclear components.

He subsequently toned down his language, but insisted Saturday that the ammunition posed an additional danger to both troops and civilians in Ukraine by leaving a radioactive trace and contaminating agricultural land.

“Those weapons are harmful not just for combatants, but also for the people living in those territories and for the environment,” he said.

Putin added that Russia has vast stockpiles of similar ammunition but so far has refrained from using it.

Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process needed to create nuclear weapons. The rounds can’t generate a nuclear reaction but they do emit low levels of radiation. The U.N. nuclear watchdog has warned of the possible dangers of exposure.

Such rounds were developed by the U.S. during the Cold War to destroy Soviet tanks, including the same T-72 tanks that Ukraine now faces in its push to break through a stalemate in the east.

LUKASHENKO’S STAND

Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who is living in exile, said the agreement to transfer the tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus “underlines the threat to regional security” from Lukashenko’s regime.

“Europe won’t be safe until Belarus dictator is removed & brought before tribunal to face justice for crimes against our country & Ukraine,” Tsikhanouskaya wrote on Twitter.

Lukashenko’s support of the war has drawn international criticism and sanctions. But he has publicly stood by Russia, which has pumped billions of dollars into shoring up his Sovietstyle, state- controlled economy with cheap energy and loans.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta has expressed concern to China over any provision of lethal aid to support Russia in its war against Ukraine during a meeting with her Chinese counterpart.

Her press office Saturday detailed Mahuta’s cautionary remarks in Beijing, days after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Moscow the same week to give Putin a diplomatic boost after the International Criminal Court said it wants to put him on trial for alleged war crimes.

On the Ukraine war, Mahuta reiterated her government’s condemnation of Moscow’s “illegal invasion” to her counterpart Qin Gang.

She also told Qin’s predecessor Wang Yi, now the Chinese Communist Party’s most senior foreign policy official, that peace and prosperity are the expectations of all parties, according to China’s official news agency Xinhua. New Zealand supports political settlement of disputes through dialogue, she was quoted saying in the report.

Wang said the pressing task is to achieve a ceasefire and resume peace talks, and China would continue to play a constructive role to promote a political settlement, Xinhua reported.

During the meeting with Qin, Mahuta also raised concerns over the human-rights situation in Xinjiang, the erosion of freedoms in Hong Kong, disputes in the South China Sea and increasing tensions in the Taiwan Strait, her press office said.

The ministers discussed the possibility of New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins visiting China this year, the office added.

China is New Zealand’s largest trading partner and New Zealand exporters rely on China to buy milk products and other agricultural goods.

BATTLE FOR BAKHMUT

In the long and grinding battle for the town of Bakhmut, the top commander of Ukraine’s military said Saturday that his forces were pushing back against Russian troops and British military intelligence says Russia appears to be moving to a defensive strategy in eastern Ukraine.

“The Bakhmut direction is the most difficult. Thanks to the titanic efforts of the defense forces, the situation is being stabilized,” Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi stated on Telegram giving a synopsis of a phone call with Adm. Sir Tony Radakin, Britain’s chief of defense staff.

The seven- month fight for Bakhmut, where Russian forces have closed in on three sides, is the longest battle of the war, with Russia deploying both regular soldiers and fighters of the mercenary Wagner Group.

Russian forces must go through Bakhmut to push deeper into parts of the eastern Donbas region, though Western officials say the capture of the city would have limited impact on the course of the war.

Britain’s Defense Ministry stated in its latest intelligence update that “Russia’s assault on the Donbas town of Bakhmut has largely stalled. This is likely primarily a result of extreme attrition of the Russian force.”

Russia is likely shifting its focus toward two other sectors, which “suggests an overall return to a more defensive operational design after inconclusive results from its attempts to conduct a general offensive since January,” the U.K. ministry wrote on Twitter.

However, the Ukrainian military cautioned that a change in strategy was not yet clear and that Bakhmut remained Russia’s main point of attack for now.

A spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern forces, Serhii Cherevaty, said the Russian forces were still hitting the town with artillery and airstrikes, although the number of daily clashes had dropped to fewer than 20, down from 30 to 50 not long ago.

“The coming week will tell,” Cherevaty said on Ukrainian television.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of Donetsk province, where Bakhmut is located, said one civilian was killed in the fighting on Friday and another civilian was killed elsewhere in the province. Russian rockets hit the town of Kramatorsk during the night, but caused no injuries, Kyrylenko said.

On Saturday, Russian artillery struck Chasiv Yar, a city west of Bakhmut, and Toretsk to the south, killing two civilians, the Ukrainian presidential office said.

Two people were killed and six injured in Russian firing on the southern Kherson region, the local administration said.