Opposition group: deployment of nukes to create threat comparable to Chernobyl

April 5, BPN. Arciom Bruchan, a spokesman for the Warsaw-based Belarusian National Anti-Crisis Management (NAM), says the upcoming deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus poses a serious threat to the country.

“Dictator [Alaksandr] Łukašenka’s consent to the deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus has created a serious threat to our country and us, Belarusians, which can be compared to the Chernobyl disaster,” he said on YouTube on April 5.

According to him, this development would turn Belarusian airfields and military units, as well as Russian troops stationed in the republic, into potential targets. “This approach, the deployment and use of nuclear weapons and a retaliatory strike against Belarus, not Russia, is in [Vladimir] Putin’s interest,” he added.

In an interview with the Rossiya 24 TV channel on March 25, Putin said that a special storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus would be completed by July 1. The West and Belarusian democratic forces denounced this plan, while China spoke out against any nuclear wars.

On March 31, Alaksandr Łukašenka said the deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus would be an attempt to protect the state, not an act of intimidation.

Moscow’s envoy to Belarus, Boris Gryzlov, said the storage facility for Russian nuclear weapons would be built near the Russian-Belarusian union’s western border.