Berlin: The German Foreign Ministry on Sunday condemned Russia’s decision to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus and called it an “attempt at nuclear intimidation,” German media reported.
On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow and Minsk had agreed to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus without violating international commitments, adding that the United States had long stationed its tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of its allies and NATO countries. The construction of the weapons storage facility in Belarus will be completed on July 1, Putin said.
“The comparison made by President Putin with the joint use of NATO nuclear weapons is misleading and cannot be used to justify the step announced by Russia,” the ministry said in a statement, as quoted by German news agency DPA.
Berlin also reportedly recalled that Minsk had made several international commitments to be free of nuclear weapons.
The German authorities do not comment on the existence of nuclear weapons in the country, but leading international experts estimate the number of US nuclear bombs in the Western European country at several dozen units. For many years, opposition parties in Germany have been demanding the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from the country’s territory.
