The first batch of nuclear warheads has been delivered to Belarus, which are planned to be placed on the territory of the country, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. It is reported by RIA Novosti.
“We will move part of the tactical weapons to Belarusian territory. The first nuclear charges have already been delivered to the territory of Belarus. We will complete this work by the end of the summer. This is an element of deterrence,” Putin said.
He also stated that Russia does not yet have a need to use nuclear weapons, but the authorities will not reduce their number:
“Nuclear weapons are created in order to ensure our security and the existence of the Russian state. We, firstly, do not have such a need (to use it), and secondly, the very fact of reasoning on this topic already lowers the possibility of lowering the threshold for the use of weapons. We have more such weapons than the NATO countries. They know about it and all the time they persuade us to start talks on reductions. Fuck them!” – said the President of the Russian Federation.
The fact that Russian nuclear weapons have begun to be delivered to Belarus was announced on May 25 by Alexander Lukashenko. He told reporters that Putin “informed him that today he signed a decree on our actions to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus. That is, it was about a specific document. “We had to prepare storage areas and so on. We did it, so the movement of nuclear weapons has already begun,” Lukashenka said.
In March, Vladimir Putin announced the construction of a storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. Russia has "hundreds of thousands" of depleted uranium shells, he said.
