United States slams Putin’s “hypocrisy” in placing nukes in Belarus

June 22, BPN. Washington continues “to actively monitor the situation” on the deployment of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, a spokesman for the US Department of State told journalists on June 21.

“We’ve not seen any reason to adjust our own nuclear posture,” Vedant Patel, a principal deputy spokesman, added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions reveal his “hypocrisy,” Patel said echoing US President Joe Biden, who described Russian nuclear rhetoric as “reckless and irresponsible.”

Patels’s comments come days after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described Russian nuclear plans as “ironic,” since Putin justified his invasion of Ukraine by seeking to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons.

The US considers the deployment as “another example of [Alaksandr] Łukašenka making irresponsible and provocative choices to cede more control over Belarus to the Kremlin against the will of the Belarusian people.”

Washington may be “taking easy” Russian nukes in Belarus because Łukašenka has not declared his intentions to “go to war with the United States or hit American targets in Europe,” political analyst Alexander Friedman told BPN. “If Moscow and Minsk decide to use nuclear weapons, they will do everything to avoid a direct American response,” he said.

Last week, Łukašenka said that he would be ready to use nuclear weapons “immediately” and without hesitation in response to aggression against his country.

On June 13, he said that a part of the Russian nuclear arsenal had been delivered but Belarus has not yet received all “bombs and missiles.”

On June 16, Putin announced that the first nuclear warheads had arrived in Belarus.