Lukashenko says Russia has started transferring nuclear weapons to Belarus

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has upset the nuclear balance in Europe. Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko announced Thursday that "the transfer of Russian nuclear weapons" to its territory "has begun." A deployment of tactical weapons in the satellite country that Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin announced two months ago, just 30 days after suspending Russian participation in the last bilateral agreement he had with the United States for the control of nuclear weapons, the New Start. Minsk and Moscow have signed on Thursday the protocols for the storage of weapons of mass destruction, although the Belarusian president has played on ambiguity when asked in the Russian capital if his country has already received the warheads: "It is possible. As soon as I arrive, I will see him."

This rearmament has caused concern in the European Union. "Of course, this is not a step towards de-escalation. It is not a step to reduce tension, it is a step that increases it. It can be seen in the context of Russian aggression [on Ukraine] and support from Belarus. We will closely monitor the development of the situation and respond as necessary," said the spokesman for Foreign Affairs of the European Executive, Peter Stano.

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The defense ministers of Russia and Belarus, Sergei Shoigu and Viktor Khrenin, respectively, sealed on Thursday the documents defining the procedures for keeping non-strategic nuclear weapons in a special warehouse. However, Moscow has stressed that its control is the exclusive power of the Kremlin.

"Russia does not transfer nuclear weapons to the Republic of Belarus. The control over them and the decision on their use are in the hands of Russia," Shoigu said during the event, where he affirmed that "the measures implemented comply with all existing international legal obligations."

Barely a month after pledging Chinese President Xi Jinping not to provoke a nuclear escalation, Putin announced to the world in an interview on the evening of March 25 that he would deploy weapons of mass destruction in Belarus with the cooperation of the Minsk regime. He said his forces had already helped Belarus modify ten planes to carry tactical nuclear bombs and had delivered Iskander missile systems, also capable of mounting warheads, to Lukashenko. The construction of the warehouse of tactical weapons was to be completed, according to Putin, in record time: next July 1.

"We are practical and punctilious people, so do not worry about nuclear weapons, we are responsible," said Lukashenko, the same leader who caused a migration crisis in neighboring European Union countries in 2021, months before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Minsk then allowed thousands of people from the Middle East and other parts of the world to enter them to their fate at the border with the Baltic countries and Poland. As the affected governments reinforced the borders to curb the sudden spike in migrants and asylum seekers, Minsk found an excuse for Russia to send nuclear bombers to patrol the territory.

Lukashenko admitted Thursday in an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin that Putin is calling the shots. "I'm not going to talk about the quantity [of tactical weapons] or their placement. We have agreed on the deployment of nuclear weapons, where and how many munitions. It was necessary to make a decision, and the decision is made by the president of Russia," said the Belarusian president, whose country agreed in the nineties, like Ukraine, to get rid of weapons of mass destruction inherited from the Soviet Union in exchange for security guarantees. But unlike Kiev, Lukashenko presented a reform of the Constitution at the end of 2021, endorsed in February 2022 – just a few days after the war began – to allow the deployment of the Russian arsenal and, in the process, shield itself in power.

The Kremlin paved the way for this deployment of nuclear weapons with the suspension of the New Start agreement in February. The president then described Washington's demand to monitor its nuclear silos — one of the key points allowed by the treaty and which had not been complied with by Moscow since the pandemic — as a "theater of the absurd." Despite the freezing of the agreement and the transfer of this type of Russian weapons to Belarus, the United States published last week a list of all its nuclear warheads "to show the commitment to responsible nuclear conduct." The Joe Biden Administration called on Putin "to fully comply again with the New Start treaty and with all the stabilizing measures of transparency and verification contained therein."

Moscow, for its part, will use the European rearmament brought about by Russia's invasion of neighboring Ukraine as a justification for its nuclear race. "Against the background of the sharp escalation of threats on the western borders of Russia and Belarus, the decision was made to respond through the military-nuclear sphere," the Russian defense minister said Thursday.

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