Episode Notes:

Last weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated that the construction of nuclear weapons storage facilities in Belarus had begun and is expected to be completed in July. The Russian Federation has previously moved to equip Belarusian military units with specialized aircraft and missiles capable of carrying Russian nuclear weapons. These moves have prompted concern that Russia will soon forward deploy tactical nuclear weapons in the country.

To discuss these latest developments, Andrey Baklitskiy, a Senior Researcher in the Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme at United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, joined the WarCast.

[:41] Putin’s remarks

[3:42] Preparation for deployment

[6:50] A signal to NATO or Ukraine?

[8:50] Why forward deploy

Episode Transcript

Aaron Stein: My name is Aaron Stein and I am the Chief Content Officer at War on the Rocks. You are listening to the Warcast, the members-only podcast for what you need to know, now. 

Hello, welcome. Today I'm joined by Andrey Baklitskiy, who is currently a senior researcher in the Weapons of Mass Destruction Program at UNIDIR. Andrey, it's good to have you back on the show. 

Andrey Baklitskiy: Great to be here. 

Aaron Stein:  So you have a disclaimer, we have to get out of the way first before I can ask you some questions. So do you want to lead with that for the listeners?

Andrey Baklitskiy: Views expressed here are solely mine, not of UNIDIR, not of UN, by any means. 

Aaron Stein: Well, your personal views that I'm curious about is that Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled over the weekend, we're recording this on Tuesday, March 28th, that he may begin to take steps to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. Can you give listeners the latest about what's been happening in terms of Russian deployments or potential deployments in Belarus? 

Andrey Baklitskiy: Right, so this is not a new story. Last summer in discussion with President of Belarus Lukashenko, President Putin said that Russia will be willing to modify Belarusian aircraft to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons. Then in December, Russia provided Belarus with Iskander missile systems, which are also nuclear capable. So at this point we know that Belarusian airplanes and Belarusian missiles can deliver nuclear weapons. So Putin spoke about this on Saturday. In the interview he also added that Russia is engaged in training Belarusian soldiers on those systems and on presumably use of nuclear weapons. That also wasn't a new bit. The new bit was that he specifically said that Russia is building shelters in Belarus to be finalized by July 1, suggesting that they are in some sort of process at the moment, this actually is a new bit, right, which enables stationing of nuclear weapons in Belarus because you can not just bring the nuclear weapons to a warehouse and just leave it there, you need very specific conditions, well protected, well kept, and so on and so forth. 

A lot of people interpreted this statement, especially the part when President Putin was saying that Russia's doing everything that the U.S. is doing, they immediately saw that it means that the real deployment to Belarus. But actually he never said that in his statement, it was a rather low-key interview. So this is not where you would present such groundbreaking news, it wasn't put in a speech at the foreign ministry or defense ministry or some major address, or it could have been one of the hundreds of joint statements with President Lukashenko who visits Russia very often. So I believe that deployment is not in the cards at the moment. And then really since under no condition would Russia transfer actual control to Belarus, it would mean there would be Russian soldiers stationed there with those tactical nuclear weapons. In that sense, why would you want to store them in Belarus if there's ever a need? But that scenario is rather unrealistic. You can always fly them into Belarus. If not they can be perfectly stationed in Russia, because again, it's not militarily significant, this change of 100 kilometers.

Aaron Stein: Many people did interpret, I think because the translation came out, that Russia would deploy tactical nuclear weapons. And what you're saying is, your reading is that they're building shelters and that there's a continuation of training Belarusian soldiers for the delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons, either by missile or by aircraft. For listeners, what's the difference? People are going to say, well, if the shelters will be finished by July 1, we should expect the deployments perhaps sometime in July. Is that how you're reading the statements, or do you think the decision has not yet been made? 

Andrey Baklitskiy: Well, first of all, we don't know if the shelters will be finalized by July 1. The colleagues who are doing open source intelligence by the satellites haven't confirmed there's any building in Belarus which would resemble those kinds of things. So if they're just starting, it's a really compressed schedule. Those things can take years to actually build. And, you know, even if you plan to do something by July 1, it doesn't mean you will do it. Those tend to go over budget, over schedule, and so on and so forth. So let's wait for the shelters first. The actual deployment, I don't know. As I said, it's not doing much in the military sense. Then of course, that would've been quite a big step for Russia. But it's not clear exactly what kind of leverage Russia is trying to get with this. 

It wasn't connected to any real statement or decision by the West really. It would create a lot of headaches, like Poland for example, asking and doubling down on the ideas that it should host U.S. nuclear weapons. If you don't have the actual delivery of the weapons, it's much, much safer in that sense. You can always say, well, we are not deploying anything. We train some crews and maybe their systems aren't capable, but so what, many systems are capable. And also there is this issue of Putin and Xi coming up with a joint statement, which said that both countries believe that all of the nuclear weapons should be stationed on the national territories and should be withdrawn to this national territory. That would mean four days later, Russia reversing its position and then just throwing away this joint statement with Xi, which I don't think was Russia's goal. 

And another thing, so as you said, it's Tuesday at the moment, so there was no Russian confirmation, no official Russian statement apart from this interview released. Yesterday evening, the Russian foreign ministry put out a statement, it had eight paragraphs, basically saying that the U.S. is culpable for pretty much everything, but it didn't say if Russia would deploy new nuclear weapons to Belarus, which then again suggests that it's not what they're planning to do because why be cagey about it if you're planning to do it. 

Aaron Stein: One of the questions that pops into my mind is that we as analysts, I think you included, correct me if I'm wrong, tend to view this as, if there were to be a deployment, a signal to the West, to NATO, or something along those lines. Could there be a possible different explanation in your opinion that perhaps this is a signal to Ukraine as part of the ongoing war? Or do you see them as disconnected? 

Andrey Baklitskiy: I don't see this in any way as a signal to Ukraine, if only because Russia already has all of the capabilities to get to Ukraine. It's not getting anything from stationing nuclear weapons in Belarus. The only additional value for Russia this would make is that it's closer to the West, as I said, 100, 200 kilometers closer. But then you also have Kaliningrad, which then you can say, well, Kaliningrad is an exclave, it's harder to deal with it. So maybe Belarus as a contiguous land mass is easier, but for Ukraine you cannot even make that case. So yeah, it’s sending signals to the West. And also President Putin mentioned again those depleted uranium rounds for the Western tanks or Challenger tanks, which the West, the UK is planning to supply to Ukraine. 

He was much more well read, I would say this time around probably someone wrote him a statement about the depleted uranium and he said like, yes, of course those are not nuclear weapons and yes, I understand that those are not nuclear weapons, but still they have some connection to nuclear issues and that's why we are also doing something. But then he said specifically, but also Lukashenko has asked for a long time and we've been doing this for a long time. So this is a continuation of this process in any way. We are doing what the U.S. is doing. 

Aaron Stein: This is the final question here. I agree with you that the statement was not translated accurately, obviously I don't speak Russian, but the more and more details that came out, you parsed it, it seemed to be a continuation of policy, but that policy does seem to be building towards infrastructure and dual-capable aircraft and delivery systems in Belarus. And I also agree with you that this doesn't make much military sense in terms of giving Russia new capabilities. So why do it at all, what is this that's going on here? And I'm not asking you to get in Putin's head, but it certainly seems like there's disconnects between elements of the Russian government, because you mentioned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, about what exactly is going on with these potential forward deployments of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus? 

Andrey Baklitskiy: There could be all sorts of possible explanations. Probably some of them are true at the same time. I think President Lukashenko probably wants this. He would want some kind of nuclear weapons on his territory because it gets him added protection, nobody normally invades countries with nuclear weapons. It's not like anybody was planning to invade him, but from his point of view, he might be in fear of invasion, so that should probably help him. But also this is something to increase his importance to the West and then maybe he could trade them away. So I can see scenarios why this would be good for him. For Russia, messaging, it's all about messaging, reminding the West about Russia being a nuclear weapon state, moving nuclear weapons or nuclear infrastructure closer to the Western borders. Russia has been complaining for a long time that it was the West moving its infrastructure close to Russian borders, so basically it's like, try some of your own stuff. Also just in general, you make movements to support your statements that the nuclear is entering the conflict one way or the other. And maybe you should just turn back and stop doing whatever you've been doing. But there could be a number of possible explanations for that. 

Aaron Stein: There's any number of possibilities included. So it's certainly something I'm sure the world will follow, and perhaps we'll have a follow up Warcast if there's any new developments. Andrey, thanks for joining the Warcast. 

Andrey Baklitskiy: Sure, it was a pleasure.