Russia has said it will deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus. Russian President Vladimir Putin said this step would not violate the ‘non-proliferation agreement’. He said that he will not give his control to Belarus.

Belarus shares a long border with Ukraine and with NATO members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. This will be the first time since the mid-1990s that Russia’s Nuclear Weapons will be in another country.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, these Weapons went to four newly independent countries: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. All weapons were transferred to Russia in 1996.

Putin describes the decision made on Belarus as a normal step. He said: “The United States has been doing this for decades. They have deployed their Nuclear weapons on their allies for a long time.”

Russia will also begin training to operate weapons from next week. President Putin said that the construction of a nuclear weapons storage facility in Belarus will begin on July 1.

Commenting on Russia’s announcement, the United States said it does not believe Russia is preparing for a nuclear attack. The US Department of Defense said in a statement: “We see no reason to change our policies.”

“We are committed to the collective defense of the NATO Alliance.”

NATO has condemned the statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin. NATO has called Putin’s statement “dangerous and irresponsible.”

NATO said it was still waiting, but there is no change in Russia’s nuclear strategy.

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Defense Council of Ukraine, said the move would destabilize Belarus and take away its sovereignty.

What is the meaning of the US statement?

The United States has nuclear weapons in five locations in Europe: Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Turkey.

In the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), that is, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it has been said that nuclear weapons cannot be transferred to anyone.

According to Amitabh Singh, an associate professor at JNU’s Center for Russian and Central Asian Studies, “The United States knows that, despite the deployment in Belarus, there is little hope of using nuclear weapons. Putin himself says he is in control.”

At the same time, China has made it clear to Russia that it will not use nuclear weapons.

According to Singh, “The United States is convinced that Russia will not use nuclear weapons.”

Foreign affairs expert Harsh Pant believes that the United States is running under the traditional strategy. He says: “The United States does not want to raise this issue, Russia wants to threaten a nuclear attack, but the United States is following the old policy of not attacking.”

How important is this for Russia? Steps

Belarus borders three NATO countries: Poland, Latvia and Lithuania.

Poland has already demanded that the United States deploy nuclear weapons in his country. However, there was no response from the US side in this regard.

Amitabh Singh believes that, in a way, this is the answer for Poland. He says: “Russia wants to show that it is not denying the use of nuclear weapons, that it can be done if necessary.”

However, experts believe that Russia is not gaining any major strategic advantage from this step. In view of the Ukrainian war, there is no benefit from this Russian step.

In July last year, Britain had said that if Belarus supports Russia in the Ukraine war, it will impose sanctions on it in many ways.

But apart from the United States, no major Western country has reacted to the deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus.

Pant says: “There has been no reaction from these countries because they don’t see any threat right now. Changing the locus of nuclear weapons doesn’t make much of a difference.”

Amitabh Singh says that along with this, the US is considering the possibility that if Poland says again or increases tension, then it may think about deploying nuclear weapons there.

Experts say it won’t have a major impact on the Ukraine war either.

According to Amitabh Singh, “Nuclear weapons will be the last option for Russia. They will definitely not be used with Ukraine. The war has escalated a lot and other countries have joined the front, only then can Russia think about their use.”

What will benefit Belarus?,

For Western countries, Belarus will be a big target for sanctions along with Russia.

The ruler there is Alexander Lukashenko. The results of the last elections were rejected by the European Union. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who played against Lukashenko, was sent off.

Tikhanovskaya said Russia’s deployment of nuclear weapons “contradicts the will of the Belarusian people.”

Amitabh Singh says: “Lukashenko feels that if there is an attempt to install it, he will be safe because of the presence of nuclear weapons there.”

On the other hand, Pant believes that in the future it will be easier for Belarus to negotiate with Russia and convey its point of view.

It will take a few months to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus. In the meantime, talks with some countries are also possible. India has good relations with Russia and the United States, but India is unlikely to ask Russia to back down on this decision.

Amitabh Singh said: “India has good relations with the US and Russia. India can start by creating a forum or through the G20 forum. But it will not be able to do anything independently because when China wanted to mediate, Western countries started accusing him. India would like to avoid it.”

Nine countries in the world currently have nuclear weapons.

These countries are: the United States, Great Britain, Russia, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea.

By the way, no country openly talks about nuclear weapons, but it is understood that the military of nuclear-rich countries has more than 9,000 nuclear weapons.

The Sweden-based think tank ‘Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’ (Sipri) had said in a report last year that at the beginning of 2020, these nine countries had around 13,400 nuclear weapons, of which 3,720 they were spread out with their armies.

According to SIPRI, around 1,800 of these weapons remain on high alert, meaning they can be fired in no time.

Most of these weapons are with the United States and Russia. According to the SIPRI report, the US had 5,800 and Russia had 6,375 nuclear weapons by 2020.

In 1970, a treaty to limit the number of nuclear weapons among 190 countries came into force, called the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT.

The United States, Russia, Great Britain, France and China are also involved in this. But India, Pakistan and Israel never signed it and North Korea seceded from it in 2003.

Under this treaty, only five countries were considered nuclear weapon states, which had already tested nuclear weapons before 1967, the year set for the treaty to enter into force.

These countries were – the United States, Russia, France, Great Britain and China.

In the treaty it was said that these countries cannot keep their stockpiles of arms forever, which means that they will have to continue reducing them.

Along with this, all countries other than these countries were also prohibited from making nuclear weapons.

After this treaty, the United States, Great Britain and Russia reduced the number of their weapons.

But the number of weapons from France and Israel is said to have remained about the same.

On the other hand, the Federation of American Scientists said about India, Pakistan, China and North Korea that these countries are increasing the number of their nuclear weapons.

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