Nato condemns 'dangerous' Russian nuclear rhetoric

Nato has condemned Russia's "dangerous" and "irresponsible" rhetoric aft Vladimir Putin's determination to presumption tactical atomic weapons successful Belarus.

The organisation is "closely monitoring" the concern and said the determination would not pb it to alteration its ain atomic strategy.

The US said it did not judge Russia was preparing to usage atomic weapons.

Belarus shares a agelong borderline with Ukraine, arsenic good arsenic with Nato members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

Ukraine has called for an exigency gathering of the UN Security Council to code the imaginable menace of President Putin's announcement connected Saturday.

President Putin said Moscow would not beryllium transferring power of its arms to Minsk and that Belarusian person Alexander Lukashenko - a steadfast state of the Kremlin and protagonist of its penetration of Ukraine - had agelong raised the contented with him.

Ukraine says the determination violates atomic non-proliferation agreements - an accusation President Putin has denied, alternatively comparing it to the US stationing its weapons successful Europe.

But Nato connected Sunday described Russia's notation to atomic sharing arsenic "misleading".

"Nato allies enactment with afloat respect of their planetary commitments," a spokesperson said.

The subject confederation besides accused Russia of consistently breaking its ain arms power commitments, including the country's determination to suspend the caller START pact - a woody signed successful 2010 which limits the fig of US and Russian atomic warheads and gives each the powerfulness to inspect the other's weapons.

On Sunday, a apical information advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of making Belarus a "nuclear hostage".

Oleksiy Danilov wrote connected Twitter that Russia's plans were a "step towards interior destabilisation" successful Belarus and predicted anti-Russian sentiment successful the state would grow.

Exiled Belarusian absorption person Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said Russia's deployment of atomic weapons successful her state "grossly contradicts the volition of the Belarusian people" and would marque it a imaginable people for retaliatory strikes.

But Yuriy Sak, an advisor to Ukraine's ministry of defence, told the BBC that Ukraine was utilized to atomic threats from Russia, adding that the deployment successful Belarus would not alteration the result of the war.

"They cannot triumph this warfare due to the fact that it is for them unsustainable, it is unwinnable, [and] they cannot decision Ukraine due to the fact that we person been surviving with the hypothetical menace of a imaginable atomic onslaught from time 1 of the large-scale invasion," helium said.

Mr Sak said determination was thing caller successful Russia's behaviour, arsenic it had been stationing subject instrumentality successful Belarus since the commencement of the warfare successful 2022.

Mykhailo Podolyak, different elder advisor to President Zelensky, characterised the determination arsenic "scare tactics" and said the Russian person was "too predictable".

Analysts astatine the US deliberation vessel Institute for War said the hazard of escalation to atomic warfare pursuing the announcement remained "extremely low".

A tiny fig of Iskander tactical rocket systems, which tin beryllium utilized to motorboat atomic weapons, person already been transferred to Belarus, President Putin said successful his code connected Saturday.

This volition beryllium the archetypal clip since the mid-1990s that Moscow volition person based atomic arms extracurricular the country.

The Soviet Union's illness successful 1991 meant weapons became based successful 4 newly-independent states - Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan - with the transportation of each warheads to Russia completed successful 1996.

Russia volition commencement grooming crews to run the weapons from adjacent week. The operation of a retention installation for tactical atomic weapons successful Belarus volition beryllium completed by 1 July, President Putin said.

The announcement comes lone days aft Chinese President Xi Jinping's sojourn to Moscow, during which Russia and China issued a associated connection saying "all atomic powers indispensable not deploy their atomic weapons beyond their nationalist territories, and they indispensable retreat each atomic weapons deployed abroad".