Latest in Ukraine: Putin to Deploy Tactical Nuclear Weapons to Belarus

2023-03-25

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New developments:

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a deal Saturday to deploy tactical nuclear weapons into neighboring Belarus, saying the United States has been placing such arms in the territory of its allies for decades.

In an interview on Russian state television, translated by Reuters, Putin said "the trigger for his comments was the statement by the British deputy minister of defense that they are going to supply depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine."

Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process needed to create nuclear weapons. The rounds retain some radioactive properties, but they can't generate a nuclear reaction like a nuclear weapon would, RAND nuclear expert and policy researcher Edward Geist said.

Tactical nuclear weapons have a short range and a low yield compared with the nuclear warheads fitted to long-range missiles, which are much more powerful.

The United States has about 200 tactical nuclear weapons. The 4-meter B61 nuclear bombs have yields of 0.3 to 170 kilotons. About half of them are deployed to air bases in Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belgium and the Netherlands.

The U.S. believes Russia has around 2,000 working tactical warheads.

Moscow, which has never deployed its nuclear weapons outside its borders, says it will maintain control over them. However, Putin did not say how many tactical nuclear weapons it would send to Belarus or when it would - only that the construction of the storage facility there would be complete by July 1.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons denounced what it called 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 in a tweet.

The U.S. Department of Defense said it would continue to monitor the situation.

"We have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture, nor any indications Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon," it said in a statement Saturday.

Bakhmut 'being stabilized,' says general

Meanwhile, the top commander of Ukraine's military said Saturday his forces are repelling Russian troops in the arduous, grinding battle for the town of Bakhmut.

"The Bakhmut direction is the most difficult. Thanks to the titanic efforts of the defense forces, the situation is being stabilized," General Valerii Zaluzhnyi said in a post on Telegram, giving a synopsis of a telephone call with Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, Britain's chief of defense staff.

In its daily intelligence report on Ukraine, the British Defense Ministry said Saturday that "Russia's assault on the Donbas town of Bakhmut has largely stalled. This is likely primarily a result of extreme attrition of the Russian force," and added Russia is "likely conducting "a more defensive operational design after inconclusive results from its attempts to conduct a general offensive since January 2023" in its campaign in Ukraine. Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) / Twitter

Thousands sheltering underground

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross says some 10,000 Ukrainian civilians, many who are older or have disabilities, were surviving in grisly circumstances in Bakhmut and surrounding settlements.

"They are living in very dire conditions, spending almost the entire days in intense shelling in the [underground] shelters," said Umar Khan of the ICRC, speaking to a news briefing via video link from Dnipro, Ukraine.

"All you see is people pushed to the very limits of their existence and survival and resilience."

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.