OUR Russia will regularly deploy nuclear weapons near its borders Belarus With NATOThis was stated by the country’s ambassador to Minsk Boris Gryzlov yesterday on Sunday. This statement was made against the backdrop of a further escalation of the conflict between Russia and the West.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin originally announced on March 26 that Russian tactical nuclear weapons would be deployed on the territory of a neighboring and allied country, 13 months after the start war in Ukrainean announcement that has been described as a clear message to the West.

The two Slavic neighbors signed the “union” agreement and for many years have been negotiating to further develop it. The process accelerated after Minsk decided in February 2022 to allow Moscow to use Belarusian territory when it launched an attack on Ukraine.

The weapons will be placed in the “western part” of Belarus to “guarantee the security” of “our union,” Gryzlov told Belarusian state television. “This will be done despite the noise from Europe and the US,” he added.

The ambassador declined to give details about the facilities where nuclear weapons would be developed, but confirmed that a nuclear storage facility in western Belarus would be completed by July 1 at the direction of Mr. Putin.

Belarus is bordered to the north by Lithuania and Latvia, and to the west by Poland, three members of NATO’s eastern wing, helped by the deployment of additional troops and equipment following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The United States and other allies of Kyiv expressed their opposition to the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus. US President Joe Biden called the prospect “worrisome.”

On Friday, Minsk signaled that it would allow Moscow to deploy intercontinental ballistic missiles on Belarusian territory if deemed necessary.

The new command of the Poseidon torpedo submarines

In addition, the Russian Navy intends to form a new submarine command, which will be equipped with Poseidon-type nuclear-capable torpedoes and will become part of the Russian Pacific Fleet around the end of 2024 no later than the first half of 2025, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.

Moscow announced in January that it had produced its first Poseidon torpedoes, four years after President Putin unveiled this brand new type of strategic nuclear weapon when he confirmed it would have its own nuclear engine.

At the end of March, he said that the coastal infrastructure for submarines with this type of torpedoes would be completed on the Kamchatka Peninsula, where the Pacific Fleet’s ballistic missile submarine bases are located.

A decision was made to form a new “special forces” command, an unnamed source close to the Defense Ministry told TASS. The chart predicts it will be formed “around December 2024 or the first half of 2025.”

Little confirmed information is known about the Poseidon torpedo. Analysts are talking about a hybrid of a torpedo and a remotely controlled unmanned submersible launched from a nuclear submarine.

^{Source: APE-MEB, Reuters}