‘Nuclear weapons for everyone’ who joins alliance with Russia
Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian President, has said there will be “nuclear weapons for everyone” should they choose to join a Russia-Belarus union.
The statement came just days after the countries’ defence ministers signed an agreement allowing Moscow to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
Lukashenko told reporters in Moscow that “the movement of the nuclear weapons has already begun”. The move, which is to be the first deployment of nuclear warheads outside of Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, has been met with opposition in the West.
The former Soviet country has been one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies in the fight against Ukraine, already allowing Russia to maintain troops and weapons there.
Lukashenko said in an interview aired on Russian state television on Monday that it must be “strategically understood” that Minsk and Moscow have a unique chance to unite.
“No one is against Kazakhstan and other countries having the same close relations that we have with the Russian Federation.
“If someone is worried . . . (then) it is very simple: join in the Union State of Belarus and Russia. That’s all: there will be nuclear weapons for everyone.”
Lukashenko went on to say he was expressing his own views and not those of the Kremlin.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian President, said that the “nuclear” statements from
Lukashenko
“directly indicate that the Russian Federation is deliberately ‘killing’ the concept of global nuclear deterrence and ‘burying’ the key Global Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons”.
He tweeted: “This fundamentally undermines the principles of global security . . . There can only be one solution: a tough stance of nuclear states; relevant UN/IAEA resolutions; extensive sanctions against Rosatom; systemic financial sanctions against Belarus and ultimately against Russia.”
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the Kazakh President, responded to Lukashenko’s comments by dismissing the invitation to join the union.
Tokayev’s office quoted him as saying on Telegram that he “appreciated his joke”, but that Kazakhstan was already a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, a broader trade bloc headed by Russia, and that no further integration was necessary.
“As for nuclear weapons, we do not need them because we have joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Comprehensive NuclearTest-Ban Treaty. We remain committed to our obligations under those international documents,” he added.
The Belarusian Defence Ministry said that another unit of the S-400 surface-to-air missile system had arrived from Moscow.
The plan for nuclear deployment was originally announced by Putin on March 25.