Putin says tactical nuclear weapons to be deployed in Belarus in July
Russia will start deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus after special storage facilities are made ready on July 7-8, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, Moscow's first move of such warheads outside Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union, Reuters reports.
Putin announced in March he had agreed to deploy such weapons in Belarus, pointing to U.S deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in a host of European countries over many decades.
"Everything is going according to plan," Putin told Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, discussing the planned nuclear deployment over a meal at the Russian leader's summer retreat in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
"Preparation of the relevant facilities ends on July 7-8, and we will immediately begin activities related to the deployment of appropriate types of weapons on your territory," Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript of his remarks.
More than 15 months into the biggest land war in Europe since World War Two, Putin says the United States and its Western allies are pumping arms into Ukraine as part of an expanding proxy war aimed at bringing Russia to its knees.
Putin, 70, casts the war as a battle for Russia's own survival in the face of what he says is an ever-expanding NATO. He has warned the West that Moscow will not back down.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Ukraine will not rest until every last Russian soldier is ejected from his country, and wants it to join NATO as soon as possible.
