Moscow, May 26: Russia, on Thursday, signed a deal with the Belarus government to formalise the deployment of tactical nuclear missiles on the latter country’s territory, TASS, a Russian-based news agency reported.
The Defence ministers of Russia and Belarus, Sergey Shoigu and Viktor Khrenin, respectively signed the documents on Thursday defining the procedures for storing Russian nuclear weapons at a special facility on Belarusian territory, the Belarusian Defense Ministry reported. “During the meeting, documents determining the procedure for keeping Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons in a special storage facility on the territory of the Republic of Belarus were signed,” the ministry’s press service said.
The measures taken by Russia and Belarus “comply with all existing international legal obligations,” Shoigu stressed.
The defence ministers discussed the current military and political situation and issues of military and technical cooperation between the two countries.
Earlier, on March 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on the Rossiya-24 news channel that at the request of the Belarusian side, it will deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, just as the United States has been doing on the territories of its allies, according to TASS.
“Even out of the context of these events, this statement (about the possible supply of depleted uranium shells by the UK to Ukraine – TASS), Alexander Grigorievich Lukashenko has long raised the issue of deploying Russian tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus,” Putin said.
He stressed that “there is nothing unusual about this.”