Russia siting nuclear weapons in Belarus close to Polish border is ‘blackmail tactic’
Putin’s new threat to the West: Russia placing nuclear weapons in Belarus close to the Polish border is a ‘blackmail tactic’ and tests how far the US will go to defend Europe, an academic warns
Russia’s deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus is a “blackmail tactic” to threaten the West, a leading academic warned yesterday.
Mark Almond, director of the Crisis Research Institute at Oxford, said President Vladimir Putin’s decision to station them close to the Polish border was intended to add “layers of uncertainty” to Russia’s strategy.
Because the weapons are medium-range tactical devices, they pose no risk to US cities – unlike the intercontinental ballistic missiles housed in Siberian silos.
“Belarusian weapons pose a much greater threat to Western Europe,” said Dr Almond.
It poses the question to Washington: if they are not directly threatened, how far are they willing to risk nuclear suicide in defense of European allies?
Speaking at Russia’s main economic forum in St. Petersburg on June 16, Putin told attendees that the first nuclear warheads had arrived in Belarus.
Belarus has already started taking delivery of Russian nuclear weapons, some of which President Alexander Lukashenko (with Putin on June 9) boasted are three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Pictured: Russian Yars intercontinental ballistic missile systems drive down a street ahead of a military parade in Moscow, May 9
It is a blackmail tactic that dates back to when Putin was a KGB agent in East Germany during the cruise missile crisis of the 1980s.
“This is a ploy to try to disengage the Western alliance over Ukraine by threatening neighbors like Poland who act as supply routes for our military aid.”
He said the Kremlin’s move brought other benefits to Russia, including for its main ally in the region, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
This concerns, among other things, a lack of clarity about the control of weapons. Russia has oversight, but Belarus can claim it can deploy them if it fights spills across its border with Ukraine.
Abramovich blocks help
Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich is reneging on his pledge to send the £2.3bn from his Chelsea FC sale to victims of Putin’s war on Ukraine.
Roman Abramovich, photographed in 2021, had pledged to send £2.3bn from his Chelsea FC sale to war victims
Abramovich, forced out of the club due to his close ties to the Russian president, received the money more than a year ago.
The Mail on Sunday understands they can be released to Ukraine with his permission, but he refuses to sign them off unless some amount is donated to Russian citizens affected by the war. Neither the UK nor the European Commission agrees. Last night Labor MP Chris Bryant said: ‘The people of Ukraine need help to rebuild their country and their lives now, not some distant future.’
Millhouse Capital, Abramovich’s UK firm, has been approached for comment.
Western allies will also be wary of supplying weapons to Ukraine if there is a danger of targeting Belarus and raising the threat of a nuclear attack.
In addition, Belarusian protest groups will be dissuaded from overthrowing their government, which would force Russia to intervene to protect its nuclear assets.
Putin told the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday that the transfer of the nuclear warheads to Belarus would be completed by the end of the summer.
He insisted they would only be used if Russia’s territory or state is under threat, adding that it was a warning to anyone “who thinks of inflicting a strategic defeat on us.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he saw “no indication whatsoever” that Russia was preparing to use a nuclear weapon.