Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during the ceremony to present the 2022 Presidential Prize for young culture professionals and the Presidential Prize for writing and art for children and young people, at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia March 22, 2023. Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Pool via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. - RC20ZZ94K8S2

Russian President, Vladimir Putin has been criticised by NATO over what it has described as his ‘dangerous and irresponsible’ nuclear rhetoric after the Russian president announced his country would station tactical nuclear arms in Belarus.

Africa Today News, New York recalls that Putin had on Saturday that the deployment was similar to moves from the United States, which stores such weapons in bases across Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey – an analogy Western allies called ‘misleading’.

With fears of a nuclear war heightening since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, experts believe that any Russian strike would likely involve small-size battlefield weapons, described as ‘tactical’, as opposed to ‘strategic’ high-powered long-range nuclear weapons.

Ukraine said it was seeking an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to counter Russia’s ‘nuclear blackmail’.

‘Ukraine expects effective actions to counteract the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail from the United Kingdom, China, the United States, and France,’ the Ukrainian foreign ministry said on Sunday.

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‘We demand that an extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council be immediately convened for this purpose,’ it added.

NATO also joined the criticism, with spokeswoman Oana Lungescu saying ‘Russia’s reference to NATO’s nuclear sharing is totally misleading. NATO allies act with full respect of their international commitments.’

Lungescu also blasted Russia’s announcement as ‘dangerous and irresponsible’.

However, she said the Western allies had not yet ‘seen any changes in Russia’s nuclear posture that would lead us to adjust our own’.

On Saturday, Putin announced Russia would station tactical nuclear weapons in neighbour and ally Belarus “without violating our international agreements on nuclear non-proliferation’

The Ukrainian foreign ministry accused Russia of breaching its obligations, and of undermining the ‘nuclear disarmament architecture and the international security system in general’.

It called on ‘all members of the international community to convey to the criminal Putin regime the categorical unacceptability of its latest nuclear provocations’.

Susi Snyder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons told Al Jazeera that Russia deploying nuclear weapons in Belarus could potentially lead to ‘extremely catastrophic consequences’.

‘It increases the risk of the use of nuclear weapons by adding more actors, who might potentially have the ability to drop nuclear bombs, and create potential for chaos and miscommunication,’ Snyder said.

‘These weapons, if used, would have similar or greater results than what we saw in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. They can cause huge catastrophic harm.’

Putin said the move to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus was “nothing unusual”.

Africa Today News, New York

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