Russian Belarus missile plan is ‘nuclear intimidation’, says West

The West has condemned Vladimir Putin’s decision to send tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus as the bully-boy posturing of a desperate despot.

Less than 24 hours after Mr Putin promised to move his nuclear arsenal closer to Europe and Ukraine, the US, Germany and Nato criticised the Kremlin’s attempt at “nuclear intimidation”.

With Russia’s forces facing another humiliation over the failure to capture Bakhmut after a months-long assault in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, Mr Putin is expected to intensify his nuclear brinkmanship.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, scoffed at Mr Putin’s plan, suggesting that it was the result of Mr Putin’s weakened position in light of his battlefield setbacks.

“He admits that he is afraid of losing and all he can do is scare with tactics,” Mr Podolyak said on Twitter.

Oleksiy Danilov, one of Mr Zelensky’s top security advisers, said Russia’s plan would destabilise Belarus, which he said had become Moscow’s “nuclear hostage”.

Nato yesterday said it hadn’t yet seen “changes in Russia's nuclear posture” that it needed to react to, but that Mr Putin’s rhetoric was still “dangerous”.

“Nato is vigilant, and we are closely monitoring the situation,” said Oana Lungescu, a Nato spokesperson.

A US official earlier said Washington did not believe that Russia was preparing to use a nuclear missile, referring to weapons with smaller blast yields meant for use on the battlefield rather than missiles capable of destroying whole cities.

The EU’s foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell warned that Brussels was ready to impose new sanctions on Belarus if Minsk were to host Russian nuclear weapons.

“Belarus hosting Russian nuclear weapons would mean an irresponsible escalation and threat to European security. Belarus can still stop it, it is their choice. The EU stands ready to respond with further sanctions,” he tweeted

Although the decision to deploy Russian missiles in a foreign country for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union has heightened tensions with Ukraine and its Western allies, the Kremlin is already suspected of secretly stationing nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, its European enclave.

Mr Putin sought to justify deploying nuclear missiles to Belarus by insisting that Russia would not be breaking any of its international obligations because it was only copying the US, an allegation that Germany’s foreign ministry disputed.

“The comparison made by President Putin to nuclear sharing in Nato is misleading and does not justify the step announced by Russia,” said a source in the German foreign ministry.

The US is thought to station nuclear missiles in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and in Turkey but Nato said that comparisons were facile because the US keeps to its international commitments, whereas Russia threatens its neighbours with destruction.

Belarus is a staunch supporter of Russia and allowed Russian forces to launch their invasion of Ukraine in February last year from its territory. The Belarus-Ukraine border is only 90 miles from Kyiv.

Move into Belarus

Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’s president, has also allowed Russian warplanes to fire missiles at targets in Ukraine from Belarusian airspace and has permitted Russian Iskander nuclear-capable missile systems to move into Belarus.

Analysts have said that as well as being buoyed by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit this week, Mr Putin’s nuclear rhetoric may reflect his frustration that after a seven-month siege, Russian forces have still not been able to capture the whole of Bakhmut, a town in Donbas.

The British Ministry of Defence said Russia’s slow advance had stalled because of in-fighting between the Kremlin’s Wagner mercenaries and the regular Russian army, as well as a massive casualty rate.

In Ukraine, at least two civilians died in Russian shelling overnight in towns and villages near the frontlines and, in Russia, officials said that a Ukrainian drone had exploded in the town of Kireyevsk, 135 miles south of Moscow. Three people were injured in the blast.

Russia has previously reported drone attacks on cities and airfields hundreds of miles from the border with Ukraine.