So far this week we’ve witnessed Putin’s nuclear blackmail against the West, Moscow’s arrest of a Wall Street Journal reporter, and an expansive Russian domestic propaganda campaign toting the benefits of nuclear war. Last Saturday, March 25, Putin formally announced his intent to station nuclear weapons in Belarus “without violating our international agreements on nuclear non-proliferation.” What is going on inside the Kremlin? That is what analysts in Washington are trying to determine this week. On Sunday the United Nation’s Security Council confirmed Kyiv has asked for an emergency meeting to consider President Putin’s latest threat: the stationing of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus’ silos.
“Ukraine expects effective actions to counteract the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail from the United Kingdom, China, the United States and France… We demand that an extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council be immediately convened for this purpose,” the Ukrainian foreign ministry said.
This is an attempt by Russia to contain Western actions against Russia and discourage the United States from its ongoing support of Ukraine. Earlier this week Josep Borrel, the EU’s foreign policy chief, met in Brussels and announced that Europe was ready to impose new sanctions on Belarus if it allowed Russia to reinstall nuclear weapons in its silos.
They have been maintained, but sitting empty, since the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact two decades ago. Borrel tweeted that fear in Europe is growing that Russia will use the smaller battlefield-sized nuclear weapons, called “tactical” weapons, and not the higher-powered, longer range “strategic” weapons. Putin previously has talked publicly about using the tactical weapons against NATO and Ukrainian forces. The threshold for employing them is considered lower, since the kill area and region contaminated is smaller and more likely to fall below the threshold requiring a major response from the West.
In response to reactions to Putin’s Saturday announcement, he tried to claim the move to deploy the weapons “nothing unusual” and that Washington was “totally misleading” in how it presented the situation. “The United States has been doing this for decades. They have long placed their tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of their allies,” Putin said.
Reports coming out of Russia appear to indicate the country will start training crews on April 3 and intends to finish construction of a special storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons by July 1. Germany and NATO rejected Putin’s comments about Western actions, with a German foreign affairs official calling it deceptive and that “The comparison made by President Putin to nuclear sharing in NATO is misleading and does not justify the step announced by Russia.” NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu pointed out that “Russia’s reference to NATO’s nuclear sharing is totally misleading. NATO allies act with full respect of their international commitments.” She added that Putin actions are “dangerous and irresponsible.” This week Washington and NATO headquarters independently confirmed that there is no intent to change the Western nuclear posture in Europe.
Just over a year ago Belarus allowed Russia to use its territory to launch Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Belarus’ leader Alexander Lukashenko is considered a close ally of Putin’s but also stated his country would become involved in the war “only if attacked.” Ukrainian officials consider Belarus a “nuclear hostage” of Putin’s and that it is intensifying the internal destabilization of Belarus. One Russian official blamed a British official for inciting Russia by saying that depleted uranium weapons ought to be sent to Ukraine. In response a Kremlin official claimed the country has “what it needs to answer” if the West supplied Ukraine with such ammunition. “Without exaggeration, we have hundreds of thousands of such shells. We have not used them yet.”
What is particularly problematic is that officials below Putin are no less ruthless and unlikely to restrain the Russian leader should he give the order for a nuclear strike against Ukrainian or NATO member state forces. Under Section 5 of the NATO Charter, member states agree that “an armed attack against one or more of them… shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked….” The war in Ukraine could quickly morph into a region-wide conflagration akin if Putin feels backed into a corner with no other option.
Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.
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