TOWARDS AN ESCALATION OF THE CONFLICT

WITH THE DELIVERY OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

TACTICS BY RUSSIA TO BELARUS ?

"Ten aircraft are ready to use this type of weapon. From April 3 we will start training crews, and on July 1 we will complete the construction of a special warehouse for tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus ", said Vladimir Putin. This announcement is seen by some as a response to London's announcement last Monday to send depleted uranium ammunition to Ukraine soon.

"There is nothing unusual here: the United States has been doing this for decades. It has long deployed its tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of its allies," Putin continued in a television interview. "We have agreed to do the same," he added, assuring that he had the Minsk agreement.

Within the framework of NATO, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy have at their disposal tactical nuclear bombs B-61, supplied by the United States according to the so-called principle of "double- key”, that is to say that they remain under American control, the countries concerned only providing the fighter-bombers responsible for possibly implementing them. In addition, B-61s are also stored at Incirlik Air Base [Tukey]. Moreover, Washington wants to accelerate the deployment of the B-61-12 LEP, ie version of this tactical nuclear bomb.

No violation of our international commitments...

However, Mr. Putin continued, "we have already helped our Belarusian colleagues and equipped their planes […] without violating our international commitments on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Ten planes are ready to use this type of weapon ". A priori, the type of device concerned would be the Su-30SM since the Belarusian air forces operate precisely ten copies.

On the other hand, the NPT, to which the Russian president alluded, prohibits nuclear powers [at least, declared as such] from transferring nuclear weapons and nuclear technologies to non-nuclear countries… but allows the deployment of such weapons to the outside their borders, provided that they remain under their control [as is the case for the American B-61s within NATO].

"We handed over to Belarus our well-known and very effective Iskander system that can carry [nuclear weapons]. From April 3, we start training the crews. And on July 1, we will complete the construction of a warehouse for tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus," Putin said.

Remarks which follow the British will to deliver depleted uranium shells to Ukraine. A subject on which Vladimir Putin also wanted to provide some clarification. Russia has something to answer for. "We have, without exaggerating, hundreds of thousands of shells of this type that we are not using at the moment," warned the Russian president.

He qualified this type of weapon shell among "the most dangerous" and which "generates what is called radiation dust".

British Deputy Defense Minister Annabel Goldie confirmed on Monday that the United Kingdom would supply Ukraine with depleted uranium shells, effective against tanks and other armored vehicles. Vladimir Putin also said on Saturday that he considered Western arms supplies to Ukraine, vital to Kiev's war effort, to be a "threat" to Russia.

A request from nuclear-free Belarus

But it was the strong man of Minsk, Alexander Lukashenko, who from 2022 and before Russia entered the war in Ukraine, who asked Russian President Vladimir Putin for tactical nuclear weapons.

Indeed, by signing the Budapest memoranda, shortly after the implosion of the Soviet Union, Kazakhastan, Ukraine and Belarus committed themselves to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT] and to return to Russia the nuclear weapons then in possession against the guarantee of their territorial integrity.

Moreover, Belarus enacted its denuclearization in article 18 of its Constitution, adopted in 1994. However, in 2022, and when the war in Ukraine was about to begin, this text was the subject of a revision to reauthorize the deployment of nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory. The strong man of Minsk, Alexander Lukashenko, made it known that he intended to make a request to Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, to obtain it.

Last June, during a meeting in Saint-Petersburg, the head of the Kremlin confirmed that Russia would hand over to Belarus "a number of Iskander-M tactical missile systems" capable of firing "ballistic and cruise missiles with conventional or nuclear warheads”. And that the Su-25 “Frogfoot” attack planes of the Belarusian air force would be “modernized”, while Mr Lukashenko had just asked him for devices capable of “carrying nuclear payloads” after denouncing the flights of bombers of NATO on the outskirts of his country.

This is one reason why former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the West is still one step behind.

“Our strategy of taking it step by step has allowed Putin to continue his warlike escalation. (…) This approach does not work to win a war , you have to surprise and overwhelm your opponent!”

Vladimir Putin's remarks on March 25 come just days after he said, in his joint statement with Chinese President Xi Jinping, that a nuclear war should not be started, because there could be no winner...