On Friday, President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus after special storage facilities are ready on July 7-8.
Putin claims the US and its allies are arming Ukraine in a proxy war to bring down Russia.
In March, Putin threatened NATO with tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, apparently in response to its support for Ukraine.
Leading NATO countries say they would back Ukraine and help it defend itself from what Kyiv calls an imperial-style territory grab by Russia that threatens its survival.
“Everything is going according to plan,” Putin told Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko at his Black Sea summer hideaway in Sochi when discussing the planned nuclear deployment.
Putin added, “Preparation of the relevant facilities ends on July 7-8, and we will immediately begin activities related to the deployment of appropriate weapons on your territory,” according to a Kremlin transcript.
Lukashenko said, “Thank you, Vladimir Vladimirovich.” Putin, 70, portrays the war as a fight for Russia’s survival against NATO’s expansion. He cautioned the West that Moscow would not yield.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says his country would not rest until every Russian soldier is expelled and it joins NATO.
Putin’s nuclear action is being keenly monitored by the US, NATO, and China, which has repeatedly warned against using nuclear weapons in the conflict.
After the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, the US and Russia collaborated to repatriate the enormous Soviet nuclear weapons, which were then deployed to Russia in newly independent nations like Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus.
Only the 1945 US assaults on Hiroshima and Nagasaki employed nuclear bombs in anger.
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