In response to what he claims is a constantly growing NATO, 70-year-old Putin frames the conflict as a struggle for Russia’s survival. The West has been forewarned by him that Moscow would not yield.
Metropolis Desk-
President Vladimir Putin announced on Friday that Russia will begin deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus after special storage facilities are ready on July 7-8. This will be Moscow’s first deployment of such bombs outside of Russia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Putin claims that the United States and its Western allies are supplying armaments to Ukraine as part of an escalating proxy war intended to topple Russia more than 15 months into the largest land conflict in Europe since World War Two.
In a message to the NATO military alliance led by the United States for its support for Ukraine, Putin stated in March that he intended to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
Leading NATO nations have vowed to stand behind Ukraine and assist it in self-defense for as long as necessary against what Kyiv views as Russia’s imperialistic territory grab that jeopardizes the life of the Ukrainian state. The planned nuclear deployment was brought up during talks with Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, at Putin’s summer hideaway in Sochi on the Black Sea. “Everything is going according to plan,” Putin said.
Putin added, according to a Kremlin transcript of his speech, “Preparation of the relevant facilities ends on July 7-8, and we will immediately begin activities related to the deployment of appropriate types of weapons on your territory.” “Thank you, Vladimir Vladimirovich,” Lukashenko said.
In response to what he claims is a constantly growing NATO, 70-year-old Putin frames the conflict as a struggle for Russia’s survival. The West has been forewarned by him that Moscow would not yield.
However, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine won’t stop until every single Russian soldier has been expelled from his nation. Zelenskiy wants Ukraine to join NATO as soon as possible.
China, which has consistently warned against the deployment of nuclear weapons in the fight, as well as the United States and its NATO allies in Europe, are both anxiously monitoring Putin’s nuclear move.
After the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, the United States and Russia worked hard to return the vast Soviet nuclear arsenal, then also deployed in newly independent republics such as Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus, to Russia.
Only the United States had so far used nuclear weapons in anger – in the 1945 attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Source – The Indian Express
