KYIV-Kyiv on Sunday said it was seeking an emergency meeting of the United Nation’s Security Council to counter Russia’s “nuclear blackmail” after President Vladimir Putin announced the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. Putin said the move was similar to the United States transferring weapons onto the territory of its allies, an analogy Germany called “misleading”.
“Ukraine expects effective actions to counteract the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail from the United Kingdom, China, the United States and France,” the Ukrainian foreign ministry said. “We demand that an extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council be immediately convened for this purpose,” it added.
On Saturday, Putin announced Russia would station tactical nuclear weapons in neighbour and ally Belarus “without violating our international agreements on nuclear non-proliferation”.
The Ukrainian foreign ministry accused Russia of breaching its obligations, and of undermining the “nuclear disarmament architecture and the international security system in general”.
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It called on “all members of the international community to convey to the criminal Putin regime the categorical unacceptability of its latest nuclear provocations.” Strongman Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power in Belarus for almost 30 years, is a key Putin ally.