Vladimir Putin has warned of an impending “global conflict” in an address in which he accused the West of stoking tensions regarding the war in Ukraine he started.
Putin told the meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State of Russia and Belarus on Friday that “of special concern is the situation in the European region, in particular in Ukraine.”
The Russian president said that “Western countries are deliberately escalating tensions— it is they who bear responsibility for the tragedy we see today, and they only continue to aggravate the situation.”
“This irresponsible policy is driving the world to the brink of a global conflict,” Putin added in his speech in Minsk.
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According to a transcript on the Kremlin website, Putin did not further define in what way he thought the West was escalating tensions, but his comments follow the U.S. dropping its restrictions for Kyiv to use longer-range ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems) to strike inside Russian territory.
Days after this, Putin boasted of Moscow’s launch of an Oreshnik intermediate-range missile which struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. This coincided with him formalizing Russia’s nuclear doctrine lowering the threshold for nuclear weapons use.
This raised concerns about Moscow’s saber rattling over its atomic weapons capabilities, which Putin also referred to in his speech on Friday, noting how Russia’s nuclear doctrine now includes Belarus, if Moscow deemed the sovereignty of its neighbor under threat.
Lukashenko and Putin signed a new treaty on security guarantees for the countries which required the partners in the Union State to defend each other’s borders.
Putin referred to how Russia had moved nuclear weapons onto the territory of Belarus and said that “the possibilities” of their use defensively an attack by weapons of mass destruction or “repelling aggression with the use of conventional weapons.”
Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko is Putin’s closest ally and while refraining from direct involvement in the war in Ukraine, has allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory to stage attacks on the country they both neighbor.
Belarus does not control the Russian nuclear weapons on its territory but Lukashenko made a public appeal on Friday for Putin to deploy Oreshnik ballistic missiles to the country which Minsk could determine their use and the Russian leader suggested the missiles could be deployed to Belarus by 2025, pending security guarantees.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said that the updated Union State framework demonstrated the Kremlin’s efforts “to de facto annex Belarus” and expand its military presence in the country.
Newsweek has contacted the Kremlin for comment.
