Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that if any other country wanted to join a Russia-Belarus union there could be “nuclear weapons for everyone”. Russia moved ahead last week with a plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, in the Kremlin‘s first deployment of such warheads outside Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, spurring concerns in the West.
In an interview on Russia’s state TV late on Sunday, Lukashenko said that it must be “strategically understood” that Minsk and Moscow have a unique chance to unite. “No one is against Kazakhstan and other countries having the same close relations that we have with the Russian Federation,” he said. “If someone is worried … (then) it is very simple: join in the Union State of Belarus and Russia. That’s all: there will be nuclear weapons for everyone.” He added it was his own view – not of Russia’s. Russia and Belarus are formally part of a Union State, a borderless union and alliance between the two ex-Soviet republics.
In an interview on Russia’s state TV late on Sunday, Lukashenko said that it must be “strategically understood” that Minsk and Moscow have a unique chance to unite. “No one is against Kazakhstan and other countries having the same close relations that we have with the Russian Federation,” he said. “If someone is worried … (then) it is very simple: join in the Union State of Belarus and Russia. That’s all: there will be nuclear weapons for everyone.” He added it was his own view – not of Russia’s. Russia and Belarus are formally part of a Union State, a borderless union and alliance between the two ex-Soviet republics.