France condemns Russia’s plan to station nuclear weapons in Belarus

March 27, BPN. Paris condemns Vladimir Putin’s statement that Moscow and Minsk agreed about stationing nuclear weapons in Belarus, the French Embassy in Belarus said.

France calls on Russia to demonstrate the responsibility expected of a nuclear-weapon state and withdraw from this “destabilizing” agreement, it said.

Vladimir Putin said in an interview with the Rossiya 24 TV channel on March 25 that the construction of a special storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus would be completed by July 1.

The US Department of Defense has said it sees no signs of Russia preparing to use nuclear weapons, and the US Institute for the Study of War has also called this scenario unlikely. At the same time, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) says Putin’s plan makes the use of nukes more likely.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has demanded that the UN Security Council hold an extraordinary meeting on the issue, and has urged Belarusians to prevent Putin’s plans from materializing.

“We haven’t seen any changes in Russia’s nuclear posture that would lead us to adjust our own,” NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu said.