Putin Trying to Intimidate NATO With Nuclear Weapons Move: Officials

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday announced he will start deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus on July 7-8, which falls days before a NATO summit in neighboring Lithuania.

The timing of the announcement was not lost on some officials, including Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

"This is nothing but a crude game of intimidation, trying to bully Europe into submission," Tsikhanouskaya tweeted. "We can't let dictators get away with their nuclear blackmail."

Putin first publicly discussed in March placing nuclear weapons in Belarus, which shares borders with three NATO nations—Lithuania, Latvia and Poland—as well as with Ukraine. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has long been a staunch ally of Putin, and the Russian leader used Belarus as a launching pad for the start of his war against Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

The NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, is scheduled to take place July 11–13, and the war in Ukraine will be a central topic of the meeting.

The leaders of the Bucharest Nine, a group of nine NATO members in Eastern Europe, issued a statement this week that said they will seek a "more robust, multi-year, and comprehensive support package for Ukraine" during the Vilnius summit.

The prospect of Ukraine joining the alliance will almost certainly be discussed at the summit, and the Bucharest Nine's statement said they expect the talks in Lithuania will "launch a new political track that will lead to Ukraine's membership in NATO, once conditions allow."

Putin has long opposed Ukraine becoming a member of NATO, and Kremlin officials have warned about NATO supporting Kyiv since Putin began the war more than 15 months ago.

George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government professor Mark N. Katz told Newsweek that he agrees with Tsikhanouskaya "that the timing of Russia's deployment of tactical nuclear weapons is related to the NATO summit."

"Maybe Putin hopes this move will intimidate NATO, but I don't think that Russian tactical nuclear weapons stationed in Belarus are any more intimidating than Russian tactical nuclear weapons stationed in Russia itself," Katz said.

He added, "Presuming Putin is aware of this, maybe choosing these dates to deploy the tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus is meant to show the Russian public that Russia is standing up to NATO and will not be intimidated by whatever happens at the summit."

Pavel Latushka, a former Belarusian diplomat and minister of culture, shared a similar sentiment on Twitter.

"This is Putin's attempt to influence [the] decision of @NATO Summit on perspectives of membership" of Ukraine," Latushka wrote.

David Silbey, an associate professor of history at Cornell and director of teaching and learning at Cornell in Washington, told Newsweek that he thinks "it's safe to say that Putin timed the announcement for maximum effect."

"With NATO gathering, anything he does is going to be immediately the main subject of discussion among the countries there, especially when it concerns nuclear weapons. If it makes it difficult for NATO to present a united front on Ukraine, all the better for Russia," Silbey said. "Putin also tends to invoke nuclear weapons at times when he's feeling vulnerable, which suggests that he's worried about the Ukrainian offensive potentially being successful."

Northwestern University political science professor William Reno said he thinks the announcement could have been made for a different reason.

"It is plausible—and most likely—that the announcement is meant to signal the alignment between Russia and Belarus on strategic matters," Reno told Newsweek.

He added that after Lukashenko faced allegations of rigging Belarus' 2020 presidential election in his favor, he "has become dependent upon Putin's favor to remain in power."

"This dependence increased with the intensified Russian invasion of Ukraine, and even more so with the appearance of armed anti-Lukashenko 'partisans' in recent weeks from among exiled opposition activists," Reno said. "While NATO is a likely intended audience, I see Lukashenko's government and those who oppose him as the primary target for this signal."

Another possible reason for the nuclear weapons deployment "may be to deter a Ukrainian offensive on the territory of Belarus," according to Katz.

"Ukraine may not actually be planning one, but people like Putin assume that others would behave like they themselves would in a similar situation," Katz said.