Belarus: Lukashenko invites countries to join alliance with Russia against nuclear weapons

The Belarusian president has invited other states, such as Kazakhstan, to join the close alliance that his country maintains with Russia, and says he is ready to offer nuclear weapons in this sense.

“Join the Union State of Belarus and Russia. That’s all: there will be nuclear weapons for everyone,” Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview with the TV channel Russia 1 airs this Sunday, according to remarks reported by CNN.

The invitation to join the close alliance between the two countries comes just days after the same man announced that the transfer of Russian tactical nuclear weapons to allied Belarus had begun, a month after Vladimir Putin threatened it.

It is the Kremlin’s first deployment of such warheads outside Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, which has sparked concern in the West.

Kazakhstan sweep invitation

In his interview, the Belarusian head of state also clarified that “nobody objects to Kazakhstan and other countries having such close relations as we have with the Russian Federation”, reports CNN . Alexander Lukashenko, however, clarified that this invitation came from his own point of view, and not that of Russia.

Kazakhstan, however, on Friday swept away the possibility of integrating a closer union on the model of that existing between the two countries, which is working to maintain a contested influence on its allies in Central Asia.

“Kazakhstan has no intention of creating or joining any union of states,” President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s spokesman wrote on his Facebook page on Friday.

“As for nuclear weapons, we don’t need them because we have joined the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty,” the office of the president of Kazakhstan said on Telegram. “We remain committed to our obligations under these international documents,” he added.

On Sunday, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said another unit of mobile S-400 surface-to-air missile systems had arrived from Moscow, and they would soon be ready for combat.