2023-03-26 16:10 update: 2023-03-28, 19:10
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Photo PAP/EPA/VLADIMIR ASTAPKOVICH/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL
Poland's Foreign Ministry has strongly criticised Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement that Moscow will station nuclear weapons in Belarus.
On Saturday, Putin said that Russia intends to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on its neighbour territory. According to him, Russia has already transferred to Belarus, among other things, 10 aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons, and by June 1, warehouses to store these weapons are to be built.
Reacting to Putin's announcement, Lukasz Jasina, Foreign Ministry spokesman, told PAP on Sunday that "We condemn this amplifying of the threat to peace in Europe and the world."
The Ukrainian side also commented on Putin's statement on Sunday.
Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, said it was "a step towards internal destabilisation" of Belarus which "maximises the level of negative perception and public rejection of Russia and Putin in Belarusian society.
"The Kremlin took Belarus as a nuclear hostage," he wrote on Twitter.
Putin's words were also commented on by Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
"Making a statement about tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, he admits that he is afraid of losing and all he can do is scare with tactics," Podolyak tweeted on Sunday.
According to the prestigious American think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) the risk of escalation to nuclear war "remains extremely low" and that the step announced by Putin is part of an information campaign intended to intimidate the West. (PAP)
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