Belarus will not place Russian nuclear weapons on the border with NATO member states, according to the State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus Aliaksandr Volfovich, the state news agency BELTA reports.
Oleh Katkov, editor-in-chief of Defense Express, explained in a comment to LIGA.net why this was impossible from the very beginning.
In response to journalists' questions, Volfovich said that Belarus will not place Russian nuclear weapons near the border of Poland, as previously stated by the Russian ambassador to Belarus, Boris Gryzlov. The Russian diplomat said that "this will be done regardless of all the racket in Europe and the United States."
According to Volfovich, all of Belarus "is located near the western borders", so nuclear weapons can be placed "anywhere".
"The distance and length of Belarus is 600 km. It allows you to place [nuclear weapons] anywhere," said the Belarusian official.
Military expert Oleh Katkov told LIGA.net that nuclear weapons are not placed next to the enemy anyway, so the previous threats from the Russian Federation did not make any sense. Phrases like what Gryzlov said are spread by the incompetence of the Russian leadership, and the location of nuclear weapons in Belarus does not change anything in a military sense, the expert says.
On March 25, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin announced that Russia intends to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus.
On April 3, 2023, the ambassador of the Russian Federation to Belarus, Boris Gryzlov, said that the aggressor state plans to place nuclear weapons on the border with NATO countries.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia called Russia's plan to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus "an act of despair."
