Belarusian Air Force crews have completed their training on the use of tactical nuclear weapons, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Friday.
The ministry released a video featuring a Belarusian pilot explaining that the Russian training course has enabled the crews manning the Belarusian Air Force’s Su-25 ground attack jets to use tactical nuclear bombs. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the storage facilities for the weapons in Belarus will be built and ready for use by July 1. Moscow is assisting Minsk modernizing its aircraft to carry the weapons and has provided short-range Iskander missiles which can fit such warheads as well. Russia began training Belarusian forces on the missiles earlier this month.
Putin emphasizes that the nuclear weapons will remain under the full control of Moscow and has compared his recent move to NATO’s nuclear sharing program. American nuclear weapons are deployed in Germany, Italy, Belgium, Turkey, and the Netherlands. Russia’s ambassador to Belarus, Boris Gryzlov, announced the weapons will be placed in western Belarus, near the country’s nearly 800 mile border with NATO members Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.
On Friday, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin echoed President Alexander Lukashenko’s previous suggestion that Moscow may deploy strategic, as well as tactical, nuclear weapons to the territory of Belarus. "It could be the next step" if the West continues its hostile course, Khrenin said.
Strategic nuclear weapons can possess a yield of more than 1,000 kilotons, the range of tactical nuclear weapons is between 0.3 and 170 kilotons. The bombs the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had yields of 15 and 21 kilotons respectively.
Putin announced his decision to deploy the weapons to its ally after London provided Kiev with Challenger 2 tanks armed with depleted uranium munitions, which Russia views the same as a "dirty bomb." Depleted uranium is highly radioactive and linked to cancer as well as birth defects. For instance, in Fallujah, the US military’s heavy use of such weapons during the Iraq war has led to leukemia rates orders of magnitude worse than those recorded after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.
Connor Freeman is the assistant editor and a writer at the Libertarian Institute, primarily covering foreign policy. He is a co-host on the Conflicts of Interest podcast. His writing has been featured in media outlets such as Antiwar.com, Counterpunch, and the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. He has also appeared on Liberty Weekly, Around the Empire, and Parallax Views. You can follow him on Twitter @FreemansMind96.
This concerns me very much….
In yet another display of the utmost hypocrisy ”Washington” has decided that the Russian federation has to pay for destroying Ukraine – to be funded by selling frozen assets.
I remember not all that long ago Washington’s hypocrites decided that Afghanistan had to pay for the US having destroyed it by opening up the mountains to big mining for rare earth minerals.
And they’re still in Syria without a mandate pilfering it’s assets and openly transporting it across the border.
Where’s the outrage from the West – Why is this kind of behavior tolerated.
The only possible answer is that they’ve already sold out – It’s hard to make a politician understand something when their financially rewarding luxurious lifestyles are entirely dependent on not understanding something or when doing so will quickly lay ruin to their prospects of landing lucrative future appointments.
Here’s the thing….
The steps of Government’s buildings serve as steppingstones towards well remunerated future Corporate appointments or other kickbacks such as bookdeals.
uncle sam wants the Crimea. everything else is a distraction
They’re after a lot more than just that – they’re after full spectrum control over every grain of sand every drop of water to give but an idea.
Who if I may ask do you think controls uncle Sam?
This development is a dangerous escalation. Of course, it is an escalation resulting from the West’s earlier action (it too escalating in response to an even earlier action – another reaction). We can keep going back: but where it is leading us should be the focus.
https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/
What the Obama administration kicked off in 2014 is like a runaway train now.
Belarusian Air Force crews have completed their training on the use of tactical nuclear weapons, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Friday.
why would they announce that? WTF kind of idiots would tip their hand.
oh maybe they are trying to scare the rest of the world – –
sorry Ivan but the rest of the world is already scared.
“why would they announce that?”
Because that’s the only useful thing to do with it.
The only military purpose of of anything nuclear-related is to use it to scare your antagonists (actually destroying the world isn’t a military purpose, it’s just insanity).
The West knows already, the U.S., actually. This information was for the NATO members to chew on.
“Strategic nuclear weapons can possess a yield of more than 1,000 kilotons, the range of tactical nuclear weapons is between 0.3 and 170 kilotons.”
I’ve seen where the range is 0.1 to 300. But regardless, that’s a big boom at 170.
“The ministry released a video featuring a Belarusian pilot explaining that the Russian training course has enabled the crews manning the Belarusian Air Force’s Su-25 ground attack jets to use tactical nuclear bombs.”
Whew! I was worried there for a second. Just “tactical”? Carry on.
🙂 :-}