BRUSSELS, March 27. /TASS/. The European Union will respond if Belarus confirms the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia on its territory, Peter Stano, lead spokesperson for the external affairs of the EU, said at a news conference in Brussels on Monday.
"That would be further escalation and direct threat to the European security," Stano said. "We haven’t seen any confirmation from the Belarusian side about this being on the agenda. But if it would happen, then of course there would be consequences," he assured.
Commenting on what additional sanctions the EU would impose on Russia and Belarus, Stano said, "First, it’s very important to reject this announcement and see what the Belarusian side and the [Belarusian President Alexander] Lukashenko regime <…> will have to say about this." The EU spokesperson underscored that the adoption of any sanctions was a confidential procedure.
In an interview with TV reporter Pavel Zarubin on Rossiya-24 television on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that a special storage facility for tactical nukes would be built in Belarus by July 1. Moscow has already handed over the nuclear-capable Iskander missile system to Minsk, the Russian leader announced.
The Russian president said that Lukashenko had long raised the issue of deploying Russian tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian soil. The United States deployed their nukes in a number of countries long ago, so there’s nothing extraordinary to Belarus’ request, Putin believes.