Vladimir Putin may decide to use nuclear weapons from the territory of Belarus, causing the NATO countries to attack Minsk instead of Moscow in response, the deputy chairman of the Belarusian Transition Cabinet, Pawel Latushko, said in an interview with the editor-in-chief of Gazeta Polska and Gazeta Polska Codziennie, Tomasz Sakiewicz, on the airing of Telewizja Republika.
The former ambassador thus referred to the issue of transporting Russia’s nuclear weapons to Belarus.
“This is in Lukashenko’s and Putin’s plans to create a greater threat to Ukraine and NATO countries, which are neighbours of Belarus,” said a representative of the transitional government in Belarus.
According to him, these weapons will reach the territory of Minsk even before the NATO summit in July. “In this way, the two dictators are trying to blackmail the world and this is part of their game,” he pointed out.
Referring to the power over these nuclear weapons, in Latushko’s opinion, Lukashenko would not have agreed to transport them “if he did not have any connection with the decision to – God forbid – use them.”
In the opinion of editor-in-chief Sakiewicz, the situation referred to by the deputy chairman of the Belarusian Transition Cabinet prompts a change in the perception of Belarus.
“If Lukashenko has a button for nuclear weapons, then another state becomes a state with access to nuclear weapons, which changes the balance of power in the region,” the journalist stated.
“We should understand that the planes that have been upgraded to carry nuclear weapons are Belarusian. Secondly, the pilots trained on Russian soil are Belarusian soldiers. The Iskanders that arrived from Russia are Belarusian Iskanders, because even Lukashenko, to emphasise that it is his, stuck a green and red flag on them. Nuclear weapons shelters were also built in Belarus. Lukashenko boasts that he has a so-called ‘red phone’ left over from Soviet times, and if a decision is made, he will call Putin or Putin will call him,” repulsed Latushko.
In his view, the Russian dictator will certainly have a say in the decision to use nuclear weapons, but whether Vladimir Putin will listen to him is another matter. The former ambassador pointed out that Lukashenko will certainly not be able to decide on his own.
Latushko also talked about a dangerous scenario that Russia might consider. In this scenario, Putin, after using nuclear weapons, could escape responsibility and Western countries would be divided.
“In my opinion, the scenario of using nuclear weapons from the territory of Belarus towards Ukraine may be considered. Then, as we can forecast, there will be a meeting of ambassadors of NATO countries in Brussels and there will be a discussion about who made this decision. If someone says it is a Russian nuclear weapon, then as a response we should attack the Russian Federation. Others will say – sorry, but the weapon was fired from Belarusian territory and the response should be directed at Belarusian territory. And he (Putin) is indifferent to the Belarusian people,” Latushko conveyed.
The deputy chairman of the Belarusian Transitional Cabinet indicated that he could not say 100 per cent that the information he had received was reliable, but that it showed that such a scenario was being considered and “they put it down to the fact that the Western countries were showing rather weakness in taking such a decision”.
The representative of the Belarusian transitional government pointed out that the NATO countries should still warn in advance about what consequences the use of nuclear weapons from Belarusian territory would have.