Russia Begins Deployment Of Tactical Nuclear Weapons In Belarus

President Vladimir Putin has said the United States and its allies are waging an escalating proxy war against Russia after the Kremlin sent troops to Ukraine last February.

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Moscow: Russia on Thursday moved ahead with deploying strategic nuclear weapons to Belarus, whose leader said it was the first time the Kremlin had deployed such a bomb outside Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.

President Vladimir Putin has said the United States and its allies are waging an escalating proxy war against Russia after the Kremlin sent troops to Ukraine in February last year.

Vladimir Putin announced plans for nuclear deployment in an interview on state television on March 25.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, President Putin's Defense Minister Serge Shoigu said in a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart in Minsk that the collective West is waging an undeclared war against our country.

The West, Mr. Shoigu said, is doing so to prolong and escalate the armed conflict in Ukraine.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said the tactical nuclear arsenal was moving forward after Vladimir Putin said he had signed an order, although there was no confirmation from the Kremlin.

President Lukashenko told the media that the movement of nuclear weapons has already begun. Asked if the weapons were in Belarus, he said: "Possibly. I'll check when I get back."

Mr. Shoigu said the documents he was signing in Minsk related to the process of storing strategic nuclear weapons in a special facility in Belarus.

President Putin has repeatedly warned that Russia, which has more nuclear weapons than any other country, will use all means to defend itself, and he has cast the war in Ukraine as a fight for Russia's survival against an aggressive West.

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The US and its allies say they want Ukraine to defeat Russian forces on the battlefield but deny they want to destroy Russia and deny the Ukraine war is in any way linked to NATO's post-Soviet expansion.

It is not yet clear when Russian tactical nuclear weapons will be deployed in Belarus, which borders three NATO members - Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. Russia will remain under arms control.

Tactical nuclear weapons are nuclear weapons used for specific tactical advantage on the battlefield, and are generally smaller in yield than strategic nuclear weapons designed to destroy the largest cities in the United States or Russia.

Russia has a numerical superiority over the U.S. and NATO military alliances when it comes to tactical nuclear weapons: the U.S. believes Russia has close to 2,000 such tactical warheads.

The United States has approximately 200 tactical nuclear weapons, half of which are in Europe. These 12-foot B61 nuclear bombs, with yields varying from 0.3 to 170 kilotons, are deployed at six air bases in Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

Mr. Shoigu said that Iskander-M missiles capable of carrying conventional or nuclear warheads had been delivered to the Belarusian armed forces, and some Su-25 aircraft had been modified for use with nuclear weapons.

His ministry said that Belarusian servicemen have received the necessary training. He said that the two countries can take more steps to ensure their safety.

Mr. Shoigu said that NATO's military operations have been as aggressive as possible.

The United States says the world faces the biggest nuclear threat since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis thanks to comments by Vladimir Putin during the Ukraine conflict, but Moscow says its position has been misunderstood.

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, signed by the Soviet Union, states that no nuclear power may transfer nuclear weapons or technology to a non-nuclear power, but it allows the weapons to be deployed outside its borders. Its control