President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko paid a three-day visit to St. Petersburg and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The guest complained to a colleague about the politics of his neighbors.
“We are worried about the politics of Poland and Lithuania. I don’t understand why they need this, confrontation, it’s clear that they are standing behind their backs, pushing them, and so on. Disgusting behavior, aggressive. Recently, there has been an increasing flow of information about Lithuania’s plans to stop transit from Russia through Belarus to Kaliningrad. Listen, this is akin to declaring some kind of war,” Lukashenko said.
He asked Russia to help ensure the security of Belarus.
“I ask you to consider a mirror response to these things. Without going overboard. They are training to carry nuclear warheads. Please help us at least adapt our aircraft that we have, which can carry nuclear warheads. I'm not talking about the fact that tomorrow we will transport (or you will transport) nuclear weapons there. But we can't joke. We remember 1941, when we were lulled to sleep: everything will be fine, everything will be quiet, no one will attack. And then they were not ready for it. Therefore, the situation is very serious for us,” Lukashenko said.
In response, Putin said that Russia would transfer Iskander M missile systems to Belarus.
“Over the next few months, we will transfer to Belarus the Iskander M complexes, which can use ballistic and cruise missiles. Moreover, both in conventional and nuclear versions,” Putin said.
He also proposed to retrofit Belarusian SU-25 aircraft at Russian aircraft factories and begin training flight personnel.
Lukashenko asked to re-equip the SU-31 aircraft - to adapt them to nuclear warheads.
“With a high degree of probability, nuclear weapons will also appear in Belarus,” Belarusian political scientist Alexander Shpakovsky commented on the results of the meeting in his TG channel.
His colleague Alexey Dzermant clarifies: “Lukashenko’s nuclear weapons are a nightmare for Westerners».
“Putin’s statement on the transfer of Iskander-M missile systems to Belarus, emphasizing the possibility of placing nuclear warheads on them, sounded synchronously with Lukashenko’s statement that the beginning of the blockade of the Kaliningrad region is an actual declaration of war on Russia. Nobody thinks that this just coincided? The true scale of the consequences of the decisions of Lithuania and the European Union to use sanctions as a plausible pretext for blocking transit to Kaliningrad is beginning to emerge,” says Kaliningrad political scientist Alexander Nosovich.