Russia will station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, President Vladimir Putin has said.

President Putin said the move would not violate nuclear non-proliferation agreements and compared it to the US stationing its weapons in Europe, according to Russian state media.

Moscow would not be transferring control of its arms to Minsk, he added.

The US said it did not believe Russia was preparing to use nuclear weapons after the announcement.

“We have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture,” the US Defense Department said in a statement.

“We remain committed to the collective defence of the Nato alliance.”

Belarus shares a long border with Ukraine and with Nato members Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.

This will be the first time since the mid-1990s that Moscow will have based nuclear arms outside the country.

The Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 meant weapons became based in four newly-independent states – Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan – with the transfer of all warheads to Russia completed in 1996.

source bbc.com