Jakarta –
The United States Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is sure about the claims of the Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia has transferred the first batch of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. Russia is known to have thousands of nuclear warheads.
Reported CNNSaturday (22/7/2023) Putin said last month at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Petersburg that ‘nuclear warhead [Rusia] first sent to the territory of Belarus for prevention.’
Russia has about 4,477 deployed and stock nuclear warheads, including about 1,900 tactical nuclear weapons, according to the Federation of American Scientists. It is not clear how much of the arsenal Putin wants to transfer. US and Western officials have not publicly confirmed that any weapons have been transferred to Belarus.
But a senior DIA official told a small group of journalists on Friday that analysts have no reason to doubt Putin’s claims.
“And there is no reason to doubt that they have been successful in transferring weapons,” the DIA official said.
US officials would not reveal why they believe that. They acknowledged that the weapons were difficult for the US intelligence community to track, even through satellite imagery.
(rdp/idh)
2023-07-22 08:34:40
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