NATO has criticized Vladimir Putin for what it called his “dangerous and irresponsible” nuclear rhetoric after the Russian president announced that his country tactical nuclear weapons station in Belarus.
Putin said on Saturday the deployment was similar to moves by the United States, which stores such weapons at bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey, an analogy Western allies called “misleading.”
With fears of nuclear war mounting since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, experts believe that any Russian attack would likely involve small battlefield weapons, described as “tactical,” instead of high caliber “strategic” ones. long-range propelled nuclear weapons.
Ukraine said it was seeking an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to counter Russia’s “nuclear blackmail.”
“Ukraine expects effective actions to counter the nuclear blackmail of the Kremlin by the United Kingdom, China, the United States and France,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.
“We demand that an extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council be convened immediately for this purpose,” he added.
NATO also joined in the criticism, with spokeswoman Oana Lungescu saying that “Russia’s reference to NATO’s nuclear exchange is totally misleading. NATO allies act in full respect of their international commitments.”
Lungescu also criticized Russia’s announcement as “dangerous and irresponsible”.
However, he said the Western allies had not yet “seen any change in Russia’s nuclear posture that would lead us to adjust ours.”
On Saturday, Putin announced that Russia would place tactical nuclear weapons on its neighbor and ally Belarus “without violating our international agreements on nuclear non-proliferation.”
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry accused Russia of failing to meet its obligations and undermining the “architecture of nuclear disarmament and the international security system in general.”
He called on “all members of the international community to convey to the criminal Putin regime the categorical unacceptability of its latest nuclear provocations.”
Susi Snyder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons told Al Jazeera that Russia’s deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus could have “extremely catastrophic consequences.”
“It increases the risk of the use of nuclear weapons by adding more actors, who might have the ability to drop nuclear bombs and create chaos and miscommunication,” Snyder said.
“These weapons, if used, would have similar or better results than what we saw in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. They can cause enormous catastrophic damage.”
‘Nothing unusual’
Putin said the decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus was “not at all unusual.”
“The United States has been doing this for decades. They have long placed their tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of their allies,” Putin said.
Putin said he spoke with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and they “agreed to do the same.”
Russia will start training crews on April 3 and plans to finish construction of a special storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons on July 1.
Germany said the comparison was misleading.
“The comparison made by President Putin with the nuclear exchange in NATO is misleading and does not justify the step announced by Russia,” an official from Germany’s foreign affairs office told the AFP news agency.
Experts said Russia’s move was significant as it had so far been proud that, unlike the United States, it did not deploy nuclear weapons outside its borders. It may be the first time since the mid-1990s that he has done so.
‘Scare Tactics’
Putin previously said that nuclear tensions were “rising” globally, but that Moscow would not deploy first.
In February 2022, Belarus allowed the Kremlin to launch its invasion of Ukraine from Belarusian territory.
Since then, fears have grown that Belarus could join its ally’s offensive, but President Lukashenko, a key Putin ally, said he would do so “only if attacked.”
On Sunday, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, wrote on Twitter that “the Kremlin took Belarus hostage nuclear.”
He added that the measure was “a step towards the internal destabilization of the country.”
Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak added that “(Putin) admits that he is afraid of losing and all he can do is scare” people.
The Russian leader said further discussions with Lukashenko on the issue were prompted by a UK official’s suggestion to send depleted uranium weapons to Ukraine.
Russia has “what it needs to respond” if the West supplied Ukraine with such munitions, he added.
“Without exaggeration, we have hundreds of thousands of those shells. We haven’t used them yet.”