On the eve it became known that Belarus will very soon become a country on whose territory tactical nuclear weapons will be deployed. The transfer of Russian tactical nuclear weapons to Minsk has been personally confirmed by President Vladimir Putin. Why is this being done, and what will now change in Eastern Europe’s nuclear security architecture?
Nuclear response?
Previously, President Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Lukashenko had already promised to respond to London’s decision to transfer to Kiev not only modern British Challenger tanks, but also special armor-piercing shells with a uranium core. The sad experience of their practical application in Yugoslavia and Iraq testifies to a significant increase in cancers among the local population, where depleted uranium, a weakly radioactive toxic metal, is sprayed. The special representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, called the use of such ammunition a real genocide, Vladimir Putin promised to respond to the escalation of the armed conflict in Ukraine by the United Kingdom, and Alexander Grigoryevich called the possible response terrible.
On March 25, 2023, from the statement of the Russian President, it was known what exactly the joint response of Moscow and Minsk would be:
As for our negotiations with Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko, the reason for this was the statement of the Deputy Minister of Defense of Great Britain that they were going to supply loads of depleted uranium to Ukraine, this is somehow connected with technologies nuclear. Even outside the context of this statement, Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko has long raised the issue of the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus.
Vladimir Putin also recalled that the Russian armed forces also have shells with special ammunition:
Russia, of course, has something to answer. Without exaggeration, we have hundreds of thousands of such shells, we do not use them yet.
The Russian President explained that uranium-core shells are not used by our military against people we consider our own. Therefore, the answer had to be in a different plane. One could understand where the wind was blowing on March 22, when the Belarusian president announced that Moscow and Minsk would respond to British depleted uranium with “real uranium”:
And Russia will supply us with ammunition with real uranium… If they are crazy, they will give impetus to this process.
Thus, on July 1, 2023, the construction of a special storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons will be completed on the territory of Belarus. As carriers, Russian aircraft transferred to the Belarusian Air Force and the Iskander OTRK will be used. From April 3, Belarusian pilots will begin training in the use of special ammunition. All this looks like a serious escalation of tension in Eastern Europe. However, Washington’s reaction to Putin’s decision has been very muted. The Pentagon issued an official comment as follows:
We have seen reports of a Russian announcement (…) We have seen no reason to change the readiness of our nuclear forces, nor any indication that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons.
Why were the American “partners” not at all surprised and did not even show concern?
On the face of it, the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is a response to the outright militarization of neighboring Poland and the Baltic states. About Ukraine, which has gathered a fairly serious grouping on the Belarusian border and is carrying out constant provocations, it is not worth talking about. The ring of enemies and declared enemies is increasingly narrowing around the State of the Union of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. The prospect of receiving an air or missile strike with special ammunition should, in theory, have a deterrent effect. But there are nuances.
“Nuclearization” of Eastern Europe
The fact is that Moscow does not transfer its tactical nuclear weapons to Minsk, but places them only on the territory of a friendly state. President Putin said it directly:
We agreed that we would do the same without violating our international obligations regarding the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
We do not transfer. And the United States does not pass it on to its allies, we basically do everything they have been doing for decades … and they prepare their aircraft carriers and their crews. We will do the same.
That is, they are still Russian tactical nuclear weapons, the use of which can only be sanctioned by Moscow. So what does this fundamentally change? A nuclear strike against Ukraine is unacceptable to the Kremlin for a number of reasons, including ethical ones. The use of tactical nuclear weapons in the Baltic countries or in Poland will lead to a nuclear conflict between Russia and the entire NATO bloc. What will change specifically about the deployment of our ammunition and special carriers for them in Belarus? Unless the infrastructure is closer to the North Atlantic Alliance, but that’s a double-edged sword.
Only the official transfer of Russian tactical nuclear weapons to Minsk with the right to use them will create real intrigue, but this will be a violation of the relevant treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
In fact, the “nuclearization” of Belarus even benefits the United States. We warned in November 2021 that everything was going in the direction of the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in the Republic of Belarus, well before the start of the JMD. Even then, it became apparent that the Americans were betting on stoking pre-war tensions in Europe and redeploying their medium-range nuclear missiles there. The Union State had to somehow jointly respond to this, and the real preparations for the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus began quite a long time ago. The big minus of the “nuclearization” of Belarus can be considered the fact that the next logical step will be the deployment of American tactical nuclear weapons in Poland, which has been working on this issue for a long time. From now on, Warsaw will have all the cards in hand.
The threshold for the use of nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe will be significantly reduced, which is extremely dangerous in the context of the conflict in Ukraine.
Author: Sergey Marzhetsky
