Moscow (AP) — Belarus’s longtime president said Tuesday that if NATO moves the US nuclear bomb from Germany to Eastern Europe, his country is ready to host Russia’s nuclear weapons.
President Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview for the first time that he recognizes the Crimean Peninsula as part of Russia and plans to visit it soon. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. This is a move that the West considers illegal.
Lukashenko said in the midst of tensions with Western nations over last year’s reelection and crackdown on opposition in Belarus to solidify relations with Russia, a major ally and sponsor.
Asked about the possibility of redeploying the U.S. atomic bomb to Eastern Europe if the new German government is no longer willing to contain weapons, Lucashenko told Russian President Vladimir Putin after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. He replied that he would invite him to send the withdrawn nuclear weapons to Belarus. ..
“I will offer Putin to return the nuclear weapons to Belarus,” Lukashenko said in an interview with Dmitri Kiselev, head of Russia’s national media group Rossiya Segodnya.
Belarusian leaders said they would host the “most efficient” weapons and did not elaborate on what kind of weapons Belarus would be willing to accept. He added that Belarus has carefully preserved the necessary military infrastructure dating back to the Soviet era.
Earlier this month, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltemberg needs to ponder the redeployment of nuclear weapons to the east if the new German government changes its national policy on nuclear sharing. Said.
“Of course, Germany can decide whether to put nuclear weapons in your country, but instead you can easily put nuclear weapons in other European countries east of Germany,” Stoltemberg said. Said.
Lukashenko approached Russia after the opposition and the West rejected it as fraudulent under Western pressure in the August 2020 elections up to the sixth term. Belarusian authorities have responded with a thorough crackdown on the protests caused by the elections and urged the European Union and the United States to slap Belarus with several sanctions.
Tensions have increased since the summer with the arrival of thousands of migrants and refugees on the border between Belarus and Poland, an EU member state.
The European Union has accused Lukashenko of using desperate asylum seekers as pawns to retaliate against sanctions for entering Poland, Lithuania and Latvia to destabilize the entire EU.
Belarusian officials denied the accusations, accusing the EU of not providing safe passage for migrants and refugees. Since November 8th, at the border crossing with Poland in Belarus, a large number of people, mainly Kurds in Iraq, have been stranded as the troops of both countries confront each other.
Most people stuck below freezing aim to escape conflict and despair in the country and reach Germany and other Western European countries.
Lukashenko tried to turn the western table and cast tensions over migration as part of the western plan for Belarus and Russia.
Russia and Belarus have collective bargaining agreements that envision close political, economic and military relations, but Lukashenko has in the past tried to move back and forth between Moscow and the West in an attempt to win concessions from each party. came.
And although he relied on cheap energy and loans provided by Russia, he refrained from allowing Moscow’s annexation of Crimea until Tuesday. In an interview on Tuesday, he said he considers the Crimean Peninsula to be part of Russia, both in effect and in court. Lukashenko added that he would visit Crimea at Putin’s invitation.
“What other forms of perception would the president have if he came there with the Russian president?” He said.
Ukrainian and Western officials have recently expressed concern about the Kremlin’s plans to invade Ukraine. Lukashenko warned that if the Ukrainian government launched an attack on Moscow-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine, his country would stand directly behind Russia.
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Yuras Karmanau in Kiev, Ukraine contributed to this report.
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Follow the Belarusian Associated Press coverage at https://ift.tt/2EgD9OY
President of Belarus offers to host Russian nuclear weapons | WGN Radio 720
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