MINSK, June 14. /TASS/. The tactical nuclear weapons that Russia is deploying in Belarus are three times as powerful as bombs used by the United States in Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko told the Rossiya-1 TV channel.
"We have missiles and bombs. A bomb will be three times as powerful as [the ones dropped on] Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where one blast killed some 250,000 people, including over 80,000 who died in an instant," he said. "God forbid those weapons from ever being used."
On March 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that at Minsk’s request, Moscow would deploy its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, similar to what the United States had long been doing on the territory of its allies. Moscow has already provided Minsk with Iskander tactical missile systems capable of carrying nuclear weapons and has helped Minsk to re-equip its planes to carry specialized weapons. Missile crews and pilots have undergone training in Russia. At a meeting with Lukashenko on June 9, Putin said that the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus would begin immediately after operations to prepare facilities for their storage are over on July 7 or 8.