Russia will deploy the tactical nuclear weapons announced for deployment in Belarus on the border with Poland. This was announced by Moscow’s ambassador in Minsk, Boris Gryzlov, on Sunday. The bunkers needed for storing the weapons should be completed by July 1st. “This will happen despite the noise in Europe and the US,” said Gryzlov, former Russian interior minister and chairman of the Duma, according to the Belta agency. He said it was positive that the planned stationing of nuclear weapons in Belarus was already causing “a lot of noise” in Western media. “Finally it’s being recognized that there should be some parity,” Gryslow said. “If we are talking regarding the stationing of American nuclear weapons in Europe, then we must take measures that increase the security of our union state (Belarus and Russia).” Russia and Belarus are the territory of the Union State, a legalized territory, as opposed to the territories of the countries where the US has its nuclear weapons. “For them, these countries are just puppets, but we have a common space,” said Boris Gryzlov.
Against the background of high tensions with the West as a result of the Ukraine war, Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin recently announced that tactical nuclear weapons would be stationed in the neighboring ex-Soviet republic of Belarus. He justified the stationing by saying that the USA had been doing something similar in Europe for years.
An analysis by the US Institute for War Studies (ISW) said a week ago that Putin wanted to stir up fears of a nuclear escalation in the West in order to break support for Ukraine, for example in the delivery of heavy weapons. According to the ISW, it is “very unlikely that Russia will use nuclear weapons in Ukraine or anywhere else.” According to the ISW, Putin’s step was already announced before the war in Ukraine. By stationing nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russia is above all cementing its influence in the ex-Soviet republic.
