Aleksandr Lukashenko threatens Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus

– There are dozens of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus now, says Lukashenko according to Tass.

It is just over a year since it emerged that Vladimir Putin wanted to place nuclear weapons in Belarus.

Moscow announced at the time that it would retain control over its nuclear weapons.

Now Aleksandr Lukashenko claims that Belarus will be the first to be attacked by NATO and that they will respond with “all types of weapons”, reports Tass.

– The NATO countries have constantly criticized us for placing nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory. This means that we will be the target of the first attack if there were to be a confrontation, claims Lukashenko, who has been in power in the former Soviet republic since 1994.

Experts VG has spoken to do not take Aleksandr Lukashenko seriously:

– Lukashenko speaks as if he has received these weapons. It seems that he wants to tell his own population that he is still in charge. But he has no control over Russian nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory. He has no control over them, says Peter Viggo Jakobsen at the Danish Defense Academy to VG.

– But how many nuclear warheads there are in Belarus means nothing. In any case, he is not the one controlling them. But he would like to appear to his own population as the one who decides, continues the expert.

– Lukashenko was only told by the Russians that they were going to deploy nuclear weapons on their territory. He can only embrace it, but Belarus has no enemies. No one has plans to attack Belarus.

With the word “embrace”, moreover, the Danish expert is more right than he should have suspected. For Lukashenko said this week, according to Lenta, that he “embraced a nuclear warhead”.

Secretary General Berit Lindeman of the Helsinki Committee says that Lukashenko likes to communicate in two directions:

– Either internal medicine for its own population or in the direction of the Kremlin. And these statements are perhaps a bit of both.

– There is no one in the West who feels particularly affected by what Lukashenko has to say. No one feels threatened by the nuclear weapons, which are in any case under the Kremlin’s control.

– Why does he say that anyway?

– The war just continues, and Lukashenko has managed to stay out. He knows that there is not much support among the population for sending Belarusian soldiers across the border to Ukraine to help Russia. So perhaps this message is primarily in the direction of the Kremlin. It could also be to create the impression that Belarus is threatened, and then send soldiers into Ukraine. But I have little faith in that, says Berit Lindeman.

From February 2022, Aleksandr Lukashenko allowed Russian troops to use Belarus as a staging ground for Moscow’s full-scale invasion and attempt to take Kyiv.

Recently, Lukashenko made headlines when he spoke out against Moscow regarding the terrorists who attacked Crocus City Hall. While Putin and his men claimed they were escaping in the direction of Ukraine, Lukashenko claimed they were on their way to Belarus when they were caught.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank pointed out that it directly undermined the Kremlin’s version of the escape route of the terrorists. Because the story from the Russian authorities was that the four attackers were going to Ukraine. Putin has gone so far as to say that the terrorist attack was part of Ukraine’s attack on Russia.