2023-05-29 14:07:53
The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, said that if any other country wanted to join the Federation of Russia and Belarus, “there will be nuclear weapons for everyone”.
Russia moved forward last week with a plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, the first time the Kremlin has deployed these warheads outside Russia’s borders since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, raising concerns in the West.
In an interview broadcast on Russian state television late Sunday, Lukashenko, President Vladimir Putin’s staunchest ally among Russia’s neighbors, said it should be “strategically understood” that Minsk and Moscow have a unique opportunity to unite.
“There is no one who opposes Kazakhstan and other countries that have close relations like us with the Russian Federation,” Lukashenko added.
And he continued, “If someone is concerned…it is very simple, let him join the union state between Belarus and Russia. That’s it, and there will be nuclear weapons for everyone.”
He added that this is his point of view, not Moscow’s.
Together, Russia and Belarus officially form the Union State, an alliance between the two former republics of the Soviet Union.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan, a country of 20 million that has close historical ties with Moscow but has refused to recognize Russia’s annexation of parts of Ukraine, rejected Lukashenko’s invitation to join the bloc.
“I appreciate his joke,” Tokayev’s office quoted him as saying via Telegram, adding that Kazakhstan is already a member of a broader trade bloc led by Russia, the Eurasian Economic Union, so there is no need for further integration.
“As for nuclear weapons, we don’t need them because we joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty,” he added, in a statement that might be interpreted as criticism of Moscow and Minsk.
“We remain committed to our obligations under those international documents,” he said.
Moscow used the territory of Belarus as a starting point for the invasion of its neighbor Ukraine in February of last year, and since then they have intensified their military cooperation and conducted joint exercises on the territory of Belarus.
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