The US president described this Saturday as “completely irresponsible” the delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus in the midst of the war in Ukraine and guaranteed that it does not receive preferential treatment in the process of joining NATO.
“I have commented on this many times. It is totally irresponsible,” Joe Biden told reporters at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington before traveling to Philadelphia.
The US president also ruled out accelerating Ukraine’s entry into NATO because, he said, the European country must meet the same standards as any country that wants to join the Atlantic Alliance.
In any case, he stressed that the United States is facilitating the existence of good “military coordination” between the Ukrainian army and NATO in the face of the war resulting from the Russian invasion.
Although Western countries openly support Ukraine’s entry into NATO in the future, its immediate entry raises suspicions because the war would, in fact, turn into a direct conflict between Russia and the Alliance.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Friday that the first tactical nuclear weapons have arrived in Belarus, which borders Ukraine.
However, also on Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Russia’s delivery of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus a “provocation” but urged caution and ruled out a nuclear response from Washington.
“We will continue to monitor the situation closely and cautiously. We have no reason to readjust our nuclear policy. There are no indications that Russia is preparing to use weapons,” said the head of US diplomacy.
Blinken argued that the transfer of such weapons to Belarus is yet another “provocation” by the Kremlin and an “irresponsible decision” by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
The US Secretary of State said it was ironic that Russian leader Vladimir Putin is placing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, when one of the pretexts he used for the invasion of Ukraine was precisely to prevent Kiev from being equipped with atomic weapons.
The transfer of Russian tactical nuclear weapons to the neighboring country was announced in March by Putin and his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko.
The defense ministers of Russia, Sergei Shoigu, and of Belarus, Viktor Khrenin, signed at the end of May, in Minsk, the documents regulating the storage of non-strategic nuclear weapons on the territory of the former Soviet Republic.
Source: TSF
