Kyiv seeks urgent Security Council meet on Russia nukes in Belarus

Ukraine on Sunday called for an emergency meeting of the United Nation’s Security Council over Russia’s announcement that it would station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

“Ukraine expects effective actions to counteract the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail from the United Kingdom, China, the United States and France… We demand that an extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council be immediately convened for this purpose,” the Ukrainian foreign ministry said. 

Russia’s tactical weapons to be deployed in Belarus

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday he would deploy tactical nuclear weapons in neighbour and ally Belarus, bringing the arms to a country at the gates of the European Union.

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Putin has previously issued thinly veiled warnings that he could use nuclear weapons in Ukraine if Russia were threatened, reviving Cold War-era fears.

He also said he would deploy depleted uranium ammunition if Kyiv received the controversial weaponry from the West, following a British suggestion that it could supply Ukraine.

Putin said the move to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus was “nothing unusual.”

“The United States has been doing this for decades. They have long placed their tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of their allies,” Putin said.

Putin said he spoke to Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko and said “we agreed to do the same.”

Nuclear threat

Putin announced last month that Moscow would suspend its participation in New START, the last remaining arms control treaty between the world’s two main nuclear powers, Russia and the United States.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg slammed Russia for suspending the nuclear weapons limitation treaty with the US, saying it marked the end of Europe’s post-Cold War arms control architecture.

The announcement came after Moscow last August suspended US inspections of its military sites under New START.

US officials have voiced fears that Russia could use nuclear weapons if it feels routed on the battlefield and could plant a fictitious story to justify its actions.

Russia has already spoken of supposed Ukrainian attempts to detonate a “dirty bomb,” drawing strong denials from Ukraine and a sharp rebuke from the United States, which had rare direct communication with Moscow to warn against nuclear use.

Neither the United States nor Russia — by far the largest nuclear weapons powers — officially has a policy of no first use of ultra-destructive arms.

Russian officials have repeated that Russia would only use nuclear weapons if it was facing an “existential threat” — but the definition of such a threat remains vague. 

A recent US posture review by President Joe Biden concluded that nuclear weapons should only be used in “extreme circumstances.”

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