Putin says Russia places nukes in Belarus as a warning to the West

June 16 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that his deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, something he confirmed for the first time had already happened, was a reminder to the West that it could not inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.

Speaking at Russia’s flagship economic forum in St. Petersburg, Putin said that Russian tactical nuclear warheads had already been delivered to its close ally Belarus, but stressed that he saw no need for Russia to resort to nuclear weapons for now.

“As you know, we were negotiating with our ally, (Belarusian President (Alexander) Lukashenko, that we would transfer a part of these tactical nuclear weapons to the territory of Belarus, this has happened,” Putin said.

“The first nuclear warheads were delivered to the territory of Belarus. But only the first, the first part. But we will do this work completely by the end of the summer or the end of the year.”

The move, Moscow’s first deployment of such warheads – short-range nuclear weapons that could potentially be used on the battlefield – outside Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union, was intended as a warning to the West against arming and supporting Ukraine. said the Russian leader. saying.

“…It is precisely as a deterrent so that all those who are thinking of inflicting a strategic defeat on us are not oblivious to this circumstance,” Putin said, using a diplomatic term for a defeat so severe that Russian power diminishes in the world stage for decades.

Lukashenko, a staunch ally of Putin, saying Late on Tuesday, his country had begun receiving Russian tactical nuclear weapons that included some three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the United States dropped on Japan in 1945.

The Russian leader announced in March that he had agreed to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, pointing to the deployment of such weapons by the United States in a number of European countries over many decades.

PUTIN SAYS THE WEST WANTS A STRATEGIC DEFEAT

The United States has criticized Putin’s decision, but has said it has no intention of changing its own stance on strategic nuclear weapons and has seen no sign that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon.

However, the Russian move is being closely watched by Washington and its allies, as well as by China, which has repeatedly warned against the use of nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine.

Putin said the West was doing all it could to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia in Ukraine, where Moscow is locked in the biggest ground war in Europe since World War II after invading its neighbor last year in what he called “a special military operation”.

But Russia has no need to resort to nuclear weapons for now, Putin said, signaling no change in Moscow’s nuclear posture, which only contemplates such a move if the existence of the Russian state is threatened.

“Nuclear weapons have been made to ensure our security in the broadest sense of the word and the existence of the Russian state, but we… have no such need (to use them),” Putin said.

But he said talks with the West to reduce Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal, the world’s largest, had failed.

“Just talking about this (the potential use of nuclear weapons) lowers the nuclear threshold. We have more countries than NATO and they want to reduce our numbers. Fuck them,” Putin said.

Sounding defiant as he addressed his country’s political and business elite, he said that a Ukrainian counter-offensive against Russian forces in Ukraine had so far not met with any significant success. kyiv’s forces were suffering heavy losses and “didn’t stand a chance” against the Russian army, he said.

Ukraine would soon be left without its own military equipment, making it totally dependent on Western-supplied hardware, undermining its ability to fight for long, he suggested.

Recalling his stated goals at the start of the war to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine, Putin said:

“As for demilitarization, Ukraine will soon stop using its own equipment altogether. There is nothing left. Everything they fight in and everything they use is brought from abroad. Well, you can’t fight like this for long.”

PUTIN GIVES WARNING ABOUT F-16S

Independent military analysts say Ukraine has outnumbered Russia’s much larger army in nearly 16 months of war, forcing it into a full-scale withdrawal around the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson.

Ukraine’s military chiefs said on Friday advancing Ukrainian troops faced “desperate resistance” from Russian forces around the town of Bakhmut, which Russia captured last month after the longest battle of the war.

Ukraine says it has recaptured seven villages and 100 square kilometers (38 square miles) in the early stages of its counteroffensive.

But the Russian Defense Ministry said friday his forces had repelled numerous counterattack attempts by the Ukrainian Army at different frontline locations in the past 24 hours, inflicting heavy losses on the Kiev forces.

Putin said Western-supplied hardware such as German-made Leopard tanks were regularly destroyed and if kyiv obtained US-made F-16 fighter jets from its allies, they too would go up in flames.

“The F-16s will also burn, no question. But if they are stationed outside Ukraine and used in combat operations, we will have to figure out how to attack and where to attack those assets that are used in combat operations against us. “

That, he said, posed “a grave danger” of dragging NATO further into the conflict.

Information from Reuters; Written by Andrew Osborn; Edited by Cynthia Osterman

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