Russia must cancel dangerous plan to station nuclear weapons in Belarus

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is head of the United Transitional Cabinet and leader of democratic forces of Belarus. Daniel Högsta is interim executive director of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN.

Announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of May, Russia’s plan to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus is a dangerous escalation in his nuclear brinkmanship.

Putin’s nuclear bluster began last February, when Russia threatened to use nuclear weapons against anyone interfering in its invasion of Ukraine. And since his announcement, Russia’s Ministry of Defense has said it has started training Belarusian pilots in how to use nuclear weapons,while Russia has also supplied Minsk with the Iskander-M nuclear-capable tactical missile system, which has already been placed on combat duty.

If carried out, however, this plan to deploy nukes and involve Belarusian air crew would compromise the country’s international commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), as well as the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.

It would also be a gross violation of Belarusian sovereignty — highlighted by Putin’s choice to make the announcement on March 25, the day marking the original declaration of the country’s independence in 1918.

Belarusians cannot perceive a growing permanent military presence from Russia as anything other than the infrastructure of a belligerent state that could be used to take control of their country — much in the same way it was in Crimea in 2014. And ever since Russia used the territory of Belarus to invade Ukraine — with the support of the regime of Alexander Lukashenko — there have been about 10,000 Russian troops permanently stationed in the country.

The deployment of nuclear weapons would significantly expand this presence — and it would do so entirely against the will of the Belarusian people.

Thus far, Putin has justified what he’s doing by saying the United States has been deploying nuclear weapons in European NATO countries for decades. But this does not justify his actions.

The deployment in Belarus would be the first time a nuclear state has deployed nuclear weapons abroad since the adoption of the NPT, and such a reckless act could shred the global non-proliferation regime, sowing doubts among non-nuclear countries regarding the credibility of assurances given by nuclear-capable states. 

Stationing nuclear weapons in other countries also increases the risk they will be used because it complicates decision-making, while also increasing the risk of miscalculation, miscommunication and potentially catastrophic accidents. And with nuclear tensions running high due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this risk is dangerously exacerbated.

The detonation of even so-called “tactical” nuclear weapons — most of which are at least as powerful as the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people — would have catastrophic humanitarian consequences, and there is no humanitarian response mechanism in the world that could handle the aftermath of a nuclear blast. There is also a high risk that radioactive fallout would affect Belarus — and much worse so than the contamination the Belarusian people experienced from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

It’s often forgotten that Belarus was exposed to the highest levels of contamination from Chernobyl, and that this had serious impact on the health of its population. Children were particularly affected, with rates of thyroid cancer increasing from one case in a million before the accident to 100 in a million within the span of a decade in the worst affected region of Gomel — the second largest city in the country.

The threat to ordinary Belarusians would also increase, for in the event of a nuclear conflict involving Russia, the presence of Russian nuclear weapons in the country would make it a target for other nuclear-armed states. This makes Belarusians hostage to the decisions of Russia — a state that has firmly set itself on the confrontational path with both the U.S. and NATO, and violated the basic tenets of international law.

Meanwhile, all available evidence shows the Belarusian public are against hosting Russian nuclear weapons. A poll carried out in Belarus just before Putin’s announcement showed that 74 percent are opposed to nuclear weapons on the country’s soil.

So, as the leaders of the G7 countries meet in Hiroshima, where nuclear disarmament and proliferation will be on the agenda, we urge them — and the rest of the international community — to come together to help stop Russia and the regime in Minsk from executing this dangerous plan. 

We support the Belarusian people’s desire to retain their country’s nuclear-free status, which was established by the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Belarus of 1990, as well as the country’s 1994 constitution. But the best way to formalize this is for the country to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, formally — and finally — banning any activity related to nuclear weapons.