Good Morning,
President Putin has rattled Europe with his threat to place tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, in reaction he said to Britain supplying Uranium shells to Ukraine.
Firstly, many see Putin’s threat as a false flag operation, because the so called spent Uranium shells many countries use for armour piercing shells for tanks, are not radioactive nor do they pose the risk he has suggested to the health of Russian troops.
Tank shells made from spent Uranium are not nuclear, by any definition including the United Nations.
But Russia has increasingly threatened the west with its nuclear weapons, as a Ukrainian counter offensive looms and Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014, comes into Ukraine’s crosshairs.
Russia is trying to intimidate and scare European leaders, who may or may not blink.
Belarus used to have nuclear weapons during Soviet times, but gave up those weapons when it declared independence in 1991.
Since then a beholden President Lukashenko who needs Putin to retain power after he stole elections and jailed opposition members, has changed the constitution to permit nuclear bases.
But nothing has been constructed, so the notion Belarus’ pilots will be trained to carry nuclear bombs, planes refitted, and a base quickly built by July 1st appears to be fiction.
The Russian’s have been building nuclear weapon storage in the enclave of Kaliningrad for 7 years, and even now it may not be prepared for the shipment of those weapons. (No one is sure if Russian tactical weapons are already in Kaliningrad)
Even if tactical weapons were moved to Belarus would that bring us closer to nuclear war?
Not really say experts because those same tactical weapons can be delivered direct from Russia by warplane or missiles regardless. And there are no signs say Western military experts, that Russia has redeployed any of its nuclear forces.
Russia also makes the argument that the U.S. deploys tactical nukes in Europe in violation of treaties.
In fact, Russia has about 2,000 working tactical nuclear weapons while the United States has around 200 such weapons, half of which are at bases in Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belgium and the Netherlands and have been there since the mid 1950’s.
The U.S. is in the process of modernizing these bombs known as B61 bombs to B61-12 mainly because NATO allies want a nuclear defense even more now, because of Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, and Putin’s most recent brutal war on Ukraine.
So false flags in Putin’s World work like this - accuse the West of doing something you know is not a real threat, to lay the ground work for aggressive military expansion or your own.
He did in 2014 after the revolution in Ukraine, claiming the West was behind the protests and removal of Ukraines Russia leaning President, so he invaded and seized Crimea and started a rebel movement in Eastern Ukraine. In fact he was really scared of democracy spreading to Russia and losing power.
He did it again in February of last year when he claimed NATO expansion threatened Russia, and he invaded Ukraine to extinguish Nazi’s and push back the West from his borders.
Putin is always playing the crowd, telling Russian themselves he’s only defending The Mother Land, when he is in reality dragging the country back decades.
The move to station nuclear weapons in Belarus will serve to scare even Americans who are being told daily by Presidential candidate Trump, only he can prevent WW3.
But this appears to be another Putin bluff, but one that even a NATO spokesperson has reacted to this weekend calling it “dangerous and irresponsible”. The transatlantic alliance is “vigilant”, a spokeswoman said, a day after President Vladimir Putin announced the plan.
Dana Lewis