According to Archyde.com, the TASS news agency quoted Putin as saying that agreements on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons would not be violated. Belarus is one of Moscow’s closest allies. There was initially no information from Minsk.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has long raised the issue of stationing tactical nuclear weapons in his country bordering Poland, Putin said. “We have agreed with Lukashenko that we will station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus without violating the non-proliferation regime,” TASS quoted Putin as saying. Iskander missile complexes have also been handed over to the neighboring country.
Response to delivery of uranium ammunition
On July 1, the construction of a nuclear weapons bay in Belarus will be completed, the Kremlin chief announced, adding that Russia would not actually transfer control of the weapons to Minsk. According to a report by the Russian news agency Interfax, Putin also announced that Belarus would station 10 aircraft capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons.
Tactical nuclear weapons have a shorter range than ICBMs. This is Russia’s response to tensions with NATO over the course of Putin’s war against Ukraine. Specifically, it is a reaction to the possible delivery of uranium ammunition from Great Britain to Ukraine. The bullets with depleted uranium have a special impact, for example to destroy tanks. “Without exaggeration, we have hundreds of thousands of such missiles,” Putin said. So far, however, they have not been used.
In the past, Putin has repeatedly called on the United States to withdraw nuclear weapons from Germany because Moscow sees this as a threat to its security. Russia is not stationing any strategic nuclear weapons in Belarus that could reach the United States, for example. The range of tactical nuclear weapons is given as several hundred kilometers.
1,600 tanks for war against Ukraine
According to Putin, Russia will also increase its own tank production. “The total number of tanks in the Russian army will exceed Ukraine’s by a factor of three, even more than three times.” While Ukraine will receive 420 to 440 tanks from the west, Russia will build 1,600 new tanks or modernize existing tanks. Ex-President Dmitry Medvedev had already announced the production of 1,500 tanks this week.
Putin also said Russia could produce three times the amount of ammunition that western Ukraine wants to supply. The national armaments industry is developing at a rapid pace. However, the Kremlin boss claimed that he did not want to overly militarize his own economy. Russia has been waging a war of aggression against Ukraine for more than a year.
In fact, a government commission has already been set up in Moscow to ensure that the economy meets the needs of the military. While the Russian economy is suffering severely from Western sanctions, the defense industry has been working at full speed for months.
5,000 Wagner mercenaries pardoned
In Russia, meanwhile, more than 5,000 former convicts were pardoned after serving as Wagner mercenaries in Ukraine. They had fulfilled their contracts for the mercenary force, said its founder and boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, on Saturday. He had recruited thousands of convicted criminals from prisons for deployment in Ukraine.
The Wagner units, which operate largely autonomously from the Russian military command, play an important role in Russia’s war against its neighbor, which has been going on for over a year. They became a key support after the Russian regular army suffered a series of defeats over the past year.
“As of today, more than 5,000 people have been pardoned and released after fulfilling their contracts with Wagner,” Prigozhin said in an audio clip published on the Telegram news service. Only 0.31 percent of those pardoned committed crimes after serving in Wagner units, Prigozhin said.
London: Attack near Bachmut halts
According to British intelligence services, the Russian attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut has largely come to a standstill. “This is probably mainly a result of the significant losses suffered by Russian forces,” the British Ministry of Defense said on Saturday. Russia is now concentrating more on the city of Avdiivka and on the front section north of Bakhmut.
“The situation of the Russians has probably also worsened due to the tensions between the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Wagner Group, both of which are deployed on this front section.” Ukraine also suffered heavy losses in the month-long battle for Bakhmut, it was emphasized in London.
According to the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Army Valery Zalushny, the Bakhmut defenders have strengthened their positions. “Thanks to the titanic efforts of the defensive forces, the situation can be stabilized,” Zalushny said. The section around Bachmut is still one of the most difficult front sections.
symbolic meaning
According to London, Russia has now shifted its focus more to the southern town of Avdiivka and to the front near Kreminna and Svatove north of Bakhmut. The Russians wanted to stabilize the front there, it was said. This indicates that the Russian troops would generally position themselves more defensively after attempts at a large-scale offensive had not produced any “conclusive results” since January.
The fighting for Bachmut has been going on for half a year. On the Russian side, mainly mercenaries from the Wagner unit fought in the area. The Russian attackers have meanwhile surrounded the city from three sides – north, east and south – and are trying to cut through the last supply routes of the Ukrainian garrison to the west. Recently, however, they have been unable to make any progress.
For both warring parties, the conquest or defense of Bakhmut has meanwhile become symbolic. The city, in which a good 70,000 people lived before the start of the war, was almost completely destroyed by the fighting. According to official Ukrainian figures, only around 4,000 civilians are currently living there.
Selenskyj complains of “lack of ammunition”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the military situation in the embattled east as “not good”. The reason is the “lack of ammunition,” said Selenskyj in an interview with the Japanese daily “Yomiuri Shimbun” published on Saturday. About the beginning of a possible counter-offensive, he said: “We can’t start yet.” Without tanks and artillery one could not send “brave soldiers” to the front.
According to the newspaper, Selenskyj made the serious shortage of weapons clear. “We are waiting for ammunition to arrive from our partners,” he said, adding that the Russian military fires three times more ammunition than Ukrainian forces every day. The newspaper conducted the interview on March 23 on the train, when Zelenskyy was on his way back to the capital Kiev after visiting the southern region of Cherson close to the front. He had previously visited the eastern regions of Donetsk and Kharkiv.