Minsk. June 13. INTERFAX - President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that "there will be no hesitation" on the use of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against the republic.
"Why is it (the deployment of Russian TNW in Belarus) necessary? So that no foot of any bastards sets foot on the Belarusian land anymore. (...) God forbid I have to make a decision on the use of this weapon in modern times. But there will be no hesitation if there is aggression against us," Lukashenko said on Tuesday during a working trip to the Minsk region. He is quoted by the state agency BelTA.
He stressed that the reason for the use of nuclear weapons "can be only one - aggression against Belarus." "And the answer will be immediate. I have already said this several times in advance," the Belarusian president stressed.
"I think it is unlikely that anyone would want to fight with a country that has such weapons. This is a deterrent weapon," Lukashenko said.
He stated that the planned deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in the republic was his urgent demand to Russia "to guarantee the security of our country." "Russia is not striving for anything (by placing TNW in Belarus). It's not about Russia," Lukashenko stressed.
On June 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, said that the transfer of Russian tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus would begin after July 7-8, when the construction of facilities for them would be completed.
On May 25, in Minsk, the heads of the military departments of the Russian Federation and Belarus, Sergei Shoigu and Viktor Khrenin, signed documents defining the procedure for keeping Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons in a special storage facility on Belarusian territory. "Russia does not transfer nuclear weapons to the Republic of Belarus: control over them and the decision on their use remains with the Russian side," Shoigu said then in Minsk.
According to official information, the Iskander-M operational-tactical missile system was developed at the Kolomna Machine-building Design Bureau (High-Precision Complexes Holding, Rostec State Corporation). It was reported that the missiles of the complex can carry a nuclear warhead. In the variant for the Russian army, the complex consists of two types of missiles: ballistic and cruise.
On April 26, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported that the Belarusian military, during training in the Russian Federation, studied in detail the use of tactical special ammunition of the Iskander-M missile system. Special tactical ammunition is called for the Iskander-M complex with a nuclear warhead.
