Nuclear weapons could be stationed in Belarus again this year. As Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on March 25, these are about ten aircraft that can carry tactical nuclear weapons and an Iskander missile system that can be armed with nuclear warheads. He also announced that the construction of a tactical nuclear weapons depot in Belarus would end in July this year.
All Soviet nuclear weapons were withdrawn from Russia almost 30 years ago, not only from Belarus, but also from Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The three states renounced nuclear weapons on their territory and signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In return, the other signatory states, especially the United States and Russia, guaranteed their sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Putin announces that Russia will station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, a country allied with Moscow and bordering Ukraine and the European Union.
The Russian president argues that the US does the same with these weapons in its allied countries on European soil.#DWNoticias / ajr pic.twitter.com/NphjovzwPj
– DW Spanish (@dw_espanol) March 25, 2023
The “nuclear fortress” of the Soviet Union
Pavel Podvig of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva notes that there has been talk of a new cooperation between Russia and Belarus in the field of nuclear weapons for a long time. In February 2022, for example, the Belarusian Constitution was amended and the provision on the status of a nuclear-weapon-free country was abolished, “which opened up the legal possibility of placing nuclear warheads on the territory of Belarus,” he stresses.
According to military expert Alexandr Alesin, “a certain number of carriers of nuclear weapons” were ready even before Putin made his announcement. He recalls that in Soviet times Belarus was a “nuclear fortress”. About two-thirds of all Soviet short- and medium-range missiles, including nuclear warheads, were located there.
SU bombers and Iskander systems
According to Putin, Alesin said, ten planes capable of carrying nuclear weapons have been prepared in Belarus with Russian help. “Most likely, these are Soviet-designed SU-24 front-line bombers, originally intended to carry out nuclear strikes with a low-altitude air defense system breach,” the expert said.
According to him, in 2011 Belarus had a total of 35 aircraft of this type, some of them bombers, others reconnaissance planes. Belarus also has Iskander-M systems, which due to their technical characteristics can carry nuclear warheads.
Are current treaties violated?
Belarus and Russia are parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. “This is not about handing over nuclear weapons to Belarus. The practice of storing nuclear weapons on the territory of another State, training that State’s personnel in their use, already existed in the mid-1960s by the US and NATO. It was generally assumed that this practice did not contradict the treaty”, explains Pavel Podvig. Especially since at that time the Soviet Union considered that this practice was compatible with the treaty. NATO, says Podvig, continues it today. For example, there are US nuclear weapons in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Turkey.
The expert points out, however, that the Kremlin has changed its position since the mid-2010s and has made it clear that the parking of nuclear weapons in other countries and the training of personnel were, from Russia’s point of view, in contradiction with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty after all: “This position has been officially confirmed many times. And on March 25 it was declared that Russia would do whatever the US did, and this would not violate any obligation.”
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