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Russia has said it will put tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus near the country’s border with Nato allies in a move that will further escalate tensions between the Kremlin and the West.
Boris Gryzlov, Russia’s ambassador to Belarus, announced the move on Sunday and formed part of broader plans to “ensure security”. A storage facility would be completed by 1 July, he added, without saying exactly where it would be.
Earlier Russia’s Wagner mercenary force’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has claimed that his troops have raised a Russian flag in Bakhmut’s administrative building and “legally’ captured the Ukrainian salt mining city.
The claim was denied by Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky said that the battlefield situation was continuing to heat up in his nightly address.
He said the military situation was “particularly hot” around Bakhmut last night, with no let-up in a months-long drive to seize the city, the most protracted battle in the Russian invasion.
