Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest round of nuclear saber rattling has drawn concern and condemnation from the West, but his promise to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus may do more to expose the Kremlin’s weakness than shift the dynamics of the war in Ukraine.
Putin’s announcement that he would deploy the weapons on the territory of Moscow’s trusted neighbor and ally — which comes as Russia’s military is struggling to claim any new successes on the battlefield — was decried as “dangerous and irresponsible” by NATO, while Kyiv said it threatened “the international security system as a whole.”
But the move is likely just the latest attempt to use nuclear threats to intimidate Ukraine’s allies, military analysts told NBC News, and may not just widen the ever-growing chasm between Moscow and the West but potentially test Russia’s growing friendship with China.
Putin made the announcement in an interview that aired on Russian state TV Saturday night, where he said storing his country’s tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus — which borders three NATO members as well as both Russia and Ukraine — was not in violation of nuclear nonproliferation agreements and will, in fact, mirror Washington stationing its nuclear weapons in Europe for decades.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a staunch ally whom Putin propped up after violent protests nearly toppled “Europe’s last dictator” in 2020, had long requested the move, Putin added.
The Belarusian leader himself took nearly a week to respond, saying in an address to the nation Friday that he had intensified talks with Putin “on the return of nuclear weapons to Belarus” in order to “safeguard” his country, which he said was under threat of invasion from the West.
Belarus, which does not possess its own nuclear weapons after transferring the stock it inherited from the Soviet era to Russia in the 90s, is not officially a party to the war in Ukraine, though its…
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