(CNSNews.com) – Ukraine has called for an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s weekend announcement of plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, a close Russian ally that borders both Ukraine and NATO territory.
Accusing Russia of “nuclear blackmail,” Kyiv’s foreign ministry urged the council to act, and also asked European Union and G7 nations to put pressure on Belarus to relent.
U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby played down Putin’s announcement, saying on CBS’s “Face The Nation” that the U.S. has “not seen any indication that he’s made good on this pledge or moved any nuclear weapons around.”
“We’ve, in fact, seen no indication that he has any intention to use nuclear weapons, period, inside Ukraine.”
Still, in the most significant nuclear-related development since the invasion began 13 months ago, Putin in his comments to the Rossiya-24 news channel referred to specific, near-term dates for the unfolding plan.
Ten Belarusian warplanes have already been adapted to use the weapons, he said, adding that tactical nuclear missiles could also be carried by the Iskander missile systems which Russia sent to Belarus last year.
Russian would begin training crews to use the Iskanders as early as next Monday, “and on July 1 we will complete the construction of a special storage for tactical nuclear weapons on the Belarusian territory.” The weapons would remain under Russian control.
Putin said the move was no different from what the U.S. has been doing for decades, stationing tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of NATO allies.
The U.S. reportedly has airborne tactical nuclear weapons stored at NATO air bases in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey, and Italy, none of which share borders with Russia.
But if Putin goes ahead with his plan, the Russian weapons will be in a country bordering three NATO members – Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland – in addition to Ukraine. (Russia has already since 2016 deployed Iskanders in its Kaliningrad exclave, which borders Poland and Lithuania.)
Tactical nuclear weapons have smaller payloads than strategic weapons and are generally classified as those with ranges of less than 300 miles (for land-based weapons) and less than 400 miles (for those delivered from sea or air platforms).
A Congressional Research Service report updated last year cited unclassified estimates of about 230 tactical nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal – about 100 of which are stored at bases in the five NATO allies in Europe – while Russian has between 1,000 and 2,000.
Since the invasion, senior Russian officials have periodically made open or veiled nuclear threats, prompting Pentagon leaders to appeal for an end to the rhetoric.
Kirby said Sunday the U.S. monitors Russian rhetoric every day, but has seen “nothing that would cause us to change our own strategic, deterrent posture.”
Asked why he thought Putin was taking this step now, Kirby noted that some Russian reporting has linked the move to British plans to provide Ukraine with munitions containing depleted uranium.
Kirby dismissed the purported justification, saying depleted uranium shells pose “no radioactive threat” and are commonly used on the battlefield – including by Russia itself.
Putin’s announced plan to station nuclear weapons on Belarusian soil appears to contradict a provision in a joint statement with Chinese President Xi Jinping just last week, that “all nuclear powers must not deploy their nuclear weapons beyond their national territories, and they must withdraw all nuclear weapons deployed abroad.”
‘Unpredictable dictatorial regimes’
In response to Putin’s weekend remarks, NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu called the rhetoric “dangerous and irresponsible,” and said his attempt to compare the Russian plan with what the U.S. has been doing in Europe was “totally misleading.”
“NATO allies act with full respect of their international commitments,” she said. “Russia has consistently broken its arms-control commitments, most recently suspending its participation in the New START Treaty.”
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned that Belarus, already under E.U. sanctions, will face more if it agrees to host Russian nuclear weapons in what would be “an irresponsible escalation and threat to European security.”
The French foreign ministry called on Moscow “to demonstrate responsibility” and said threatened deployment in Belarus move would constitute “further erosion of the international arms control architecture and strategic stability in Europe.”
France warned that the move would constitute “further erosion of the international arms control architecture and strategic stability in Europe.”
Two NATO allies bordering Belarus also expressed concern.
“Putin’s decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons and their means of delivery in Belarus further increases tensions over Russian aggression against Ukraine,” said Poland’s foreign ministry. “It is a further step towards drawing Belarus into the cogs of the Russian war machine.”
Lithuania’s foreign ministry called the announcement “yet another attempt by two unpredictable dictatorial regimes to threaten their neighbors and the entire European continent.”
“These actions are dragging Belarus further into the war with Ukraine and into confrontation with the democratic world,” it said. Lithuania would call on its partners to adopt further sanctions.