The president claims that Russia has finished shipping nuclear weapons to Belarus.
After Belarus declared it had finished obtaining tactical nuclear weapons from Russia, questions were raised.
Russia has completed its delivery of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, as confirmed by the country's president, Alexander Lukashenko, during a meeting in St Petersburg. The announcement has sparked international concern. Lukashenko mentioned that the deliveries concluded in October but did not specify the quantity or deployment locations of the weapons. Tactical nuclear weapons, designed for battlefield use, have shorter ranges and lower yields compared to long-range missile warheads.
These weapons have a yield as small as approximately 1 kiloton, significantly less than the 15-kiloton yield of the US bomb used on Hiroshima in World War II. Russia asserted its control over the weapons sent to Belarus. Lukashenko justified hosting Russian nuclear weapons as a deterrent to NATO-member Poland, which supports Ukraine.
The compact nature of these devices allows for discreet transportation on trucks or planes. Independent military analyst Aliaksandr Alesin, based in Minsk, noted that these weapons use radiation-free containers, making it possible to move them without Western detection. Alesin highlighted the challenge of monitoring such movements, given the regularity of flights and the difficulty of tracking special flights.
Belarus possesses 25 underground facilities from the Cold War era designed for nuclear-tipped intermediate-range missiles capable of withstanding missile attacks. Alesin suggested that only five or six of these facilities could store tactical nuclear weapons, with military operations at all of them serving to mislead Western intelligence.
