(Reuters) – Russia will station tactical nuclear weapons in neighbouring Belarus, President Vladimir Putin said yesterday, marking the first time since the mid-1990s that Moscow will have based such arms outside the country.
Putin made the announcement at a time of growing tensions with the West over the Ukraine war and as some Russian commentators speculate about possible nuclear strikes.
The United States – the world’s other nuclear superpower – reacted cautiously. A senior administration official noted Russia and Belarus had talked about such a deal over the past year, and said there were no signs Moscow planned to use its nuclear weapons.
