While Russian President Vladimir Putin¡¯s plan to station nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus is unlikely to change Europe¡¯s strategic balance, it has put him at odds with a pledge he made with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping just days earlier.
Russia and China declared that ¡°all nuclear weapons states should refrain from deploying nuclear weapons abroad¡± in a joint statement at the end of Xi¡¯s visit to Moscow last week. Then Putin announced on state television late Saturday that Russia will place tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus for the first time since the Soviet Union¡¯s collapse, even as he insisted the move wouldn¡¯t breach Moscow¡¯s nonproliferation commitments.
¡°Putin¡¯s statement cast doubt on the outcome of his meeting with Xi,¡± said Tariq Rauf, the International Atomic Energy Agency¡¯s former nuclear nonproliferation director. ¡°He seems to be nuclear signaling to a domestic audience, trying to reassure his own public that Russia is doing OK, that the war in Ukraine is going all right.¡±
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