SaltWire E-Edition

NATO criticizes Putin for ‘dangerous’ nuclear rhetoric

DAN PELESCHUK REUTERS

KYIV — NATO on Sunday criticized Vladimir Putin for what it called his “dangerous and irresponsible” nuclear rhetoric, a day after the Russian president said he would station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

Putin announced the move on Saturday and likened it to the U.S. stationing its weapons in Europe, while insisting that Russia would not violate its nuclear non-proliferation promises.

Although the move was not unexpected, it is one of Russia’s most pronounced nuclear signals since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine 13 months ago and Ukraine called for a meeting of the UN Security Council in response.

While Washington, the world’s other nuclear superpower, played down concerns about Putin’s announcement, NATO said the Russian president’s non-proliferation pledge and his description of U.S. weapons deployment overseas were way off the mark.

“Russia’s reference to NATO’S nuclear sharing is totally misleading. NATO allies act with full respect of their international commitments,” a NATO spokesperson said in emailed comments to Reuters on Sunday.

“Russia has consistently broken its arms control commitments, most recently suspending its participation in the New START Treaty,” the unnamed spokesperson said.

New START caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy and the deployment of landand submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them.

A top security adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Oleksiy Danilov, said Russia’s plan would also destabilize Belarus, which he said had been taken “hostage” by Moscow.

Experts said Russia’s move was significant since it had, until now, been proud that, unlike the United States, it did not deploy nuclear weapons outside its borders. It may be the first time since the mid-1990s that it has done so.

Another senior Zelenskiy adviser on Sunday scoffed at Putin’s plan, saying the Russian leader is “too predictable.”

“Making a statement about tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, he admits that he is afraid of losing & all he can do is scare with tactics,” Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter.

Washington appeared to see no change in the potential for Moscow to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine and it and NATO said the news would not affect their own nuclear position.

“We have not seen any changes in Russia’s nuclear posture that would lead us to adjust our own,” the NATO spokesperson wrote.

Tactical nuclear weapons refer to those used for specific gains on a battlefield, rather than those with the capacity to wipe out cities. It is unclear how many such weapons Russia has, given it is an area still shrouded in Cold War secrecy.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry called for an extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council after Putin’s announcement and it asked the international community to “take decisive measures” to prevent Russia’s use of nuclear weapons.

“Russia once again confirms its chronic inability to be a responsible steward of nuclear weapons as a means of deterrence and prevention of war, not as a tool of threats and intimidation.”

Analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said the risk of escalation to nuclear war “remains extremely low.”

But the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons called Putin’s announcement an extremely dangerous escalation.

“In the context of the war in Ukraine, the likelihood of miscalculation or misinterpretation is extremely high. Sharing nuclear weapons makes the situation much worse and risks catastrophic humanitarian consequences,” it said on Twitter.

WORLD

en-ca

2023-03-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://saltwire.pressreader.com/article/281788518313650

SaltWire Network