Ukraine plays down Russian nuclear plan for Belarus

July 25, BPN. Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andrii Yusov has compared a deployment of Russian nuclear weapons to Belarus to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The tense standoff brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of war in 1962 over the presence of Russian nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba.

But according to Yusov’s televised remarks, the latest nuclear move changes nothing for Ukraine, which borders Russia and its nuclear facilities anyway. Moscow, he said, is simply trying to blackmail the world into peace talks.

Belarus had been a non-nuclear state since the 1990s until Alaksandar Łukašenka agreed to the Russian deployment earlier this year. At least part of the devastating arsenal has already arrived in the country, according to Minsk and the Kremlin.

Belarusian opposition leader Śviatłana Cichanoŭskaja called on diplomats to discuss the alleged deployment at the UN General Assembly and Security Council.