Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko suggested Russian tactical nuclear weapons have already arrived in his country, even as Vladimir Putin said delivery would only begin next month.
“We have missiles and bombs, we have received from Russia,” Lukashenko told a Russian TV reporter in an interview posted by the Belarusian state-owned Belta news service late Tuesday. He then boasted that the weapons are “three times more powerful” than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, saying they were capable of killing a million people “immediately.”
When the reporter asked him to clarify that the nuclear weapons promised by Russia had been delivered, however, Lukashenko chuckled and appeared to backtrack. Saying they were taking the issue “slowly,” he promised to blindfold the journalist and take her to a storage facility to see the weapons “once we get them.”
President Putin told Lukashenko at a televised meeting in Russia’s Sochi on Friday that construction of the nuclear storage in Belarus would be completed by July 7-8 and that transfer of the tactical weapons would begin soon after.
He announced in March that he’d move nuclear arms to Belarus, ramping up a confrontation with the U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies that are supplying billions of dollars of weapons to Ukraine to help it push back Russia’s invading army.
The Kremlin leader has insisted Russia is upholding its non-proliferation obligations by retaining control over the weapons, though it has trained Belarusian troops on the “storage and use of tactical special munitions.”
Lukashenko, who earlier said nuclear weapons would be used without hesitation if Belarus came under attack, said he’d have no difficulty in calling Putin and agreeing a strike if needed.
Russia has repeatedly suggested it may deploy tactical nuclear arms during its war in Ukraine, drawing criticism from the U.S. and Europe, as well as countries including China and India that have been more supportive of the government in Moscow. Ukrainian forces have begun a long-planned counteroffensive to reclaim territory in the country’s east and south occupied by Russia.
Lukashenko, whose country has a 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) frontier with Ukraine as well as borders with NATO members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, allowed Russia to use Belarus as a launchpad for a failed attempt to capture Kyiv early in its February 2022 invasion.
