FRAMSENTERET, TROMSØ (Nettavisen): The news broke on Saturday that the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, will deploy Russian nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus.
Putin later stated that ten aircraft capable of being equipped with tactical nuclear weapons have already been moved to Belarus. Putin claimed that there is nothing special about this and pointed out that the US has tactical nuclear weapons deployed in countries in Western Europe. Several world leaders reacted strongly to this, but the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Minister, Anniken Huitfeldt, have been tight-lipped. Until now.
– It is too early to say whether it will materialize. But that would be in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. What is the basis for Ukraine’s independence was that they gave up their nuclear weapons voluntarily in order to gain respect for their borders. So we’ll see if he takes these threats seriously, says Anniken Huitfeldt to Nettavisen in Tromsø during the presentation of the government’s priorities for the Arctic Council.
If Putin turns his back: – If they disappear, it’s a big problem
– Irresponsible
According to the American think tank Federation of American Scientists, Russia possesses 5,900 nuclear weapons, while the United States has around 5,400. Of the American ones, a minority will be stationed in the European NATO countries Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey.
– What they then want to do, and have expressed, is a breach of the non-proliferation agreement. It would be an irresponsible form of escalation.
– How seriously do you take this?
– We’ll see if it can materialize, there have been a lot of threats that have come from Putin, which have not materialized, says Huitfeldt.
– Symbolism
Not even one of the leading researchers on Russian foreign policy thinks the threats are that serious.
– It is mostly a symbolic act. Russia’s warfare in Ukraine has been less effective than expected and support from the West has been greater than expected. Then these nuclear weapons are the cards Russia has to play with, says Jakub Godzimirski, who is a researcher at the Norwegian Foreign Policy Institute (Nupi), to Nettavisen.
He has worked with Russian foreign and security policy at NUPI for over 20 years and believes that the deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus has little strategic importance.
– It does not matter and does not change the image in any way. Should nuclear weapons be used, it is completely irrelevant whether they come from Belarus or Russia. If you look at the difference in distance between European countries and Belarus or Russia, it is very small, says Godzimirski.
– What is the difference between Putin’s nuclear weapons in Belarus and the USA’s nuclear weapons in Turkey?
– Militarily, there is not that big a difference. If you see each other as enemies, you use these to deter. So from a purely strategic point of view, there is no difference. The big difference is that Russia is involved in an illegal and bloody war of aggression, while the US is not, he says.
Not the first time
Instead, the political scientist believes that Putin aims to intimidate Europe and NATO. He points out that it is essentially the same as what was done when the Soviet Union deployed missiles in Cuba in 1962 or SS-20 medium-range missiles in Europe in the 1980s.
– Nuclear weapons are a sensitive topic and Putin knows that it is the only thing he can beat the table with. After Europe stopped importing oil and gas from Russia, the only thing Putin can export is fear, and this saber-rattling is part of that.
But this “sabre rattling” should not only be important for Putin’s Russia. Belarus and President Aleksandr Lukashenko will also benefit from this, according to Godzimirski.
– It is an additional guarantee for Lukashenko, who is completely dependent on Putin’s support. Everyone in Europe and Ukraine fears that Russia will use Belarus to launch a new offensive and cut off Ukraine from Poland, which is the country through which many of Ukraine’s weapons are transported, he says.
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