Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has boasted his nation now hosts ‘several dozen’ Russian nuclear weapons as relations between Moscow and Europe continue to nosedive. 

State news agency Belta quoted Lukashenko as saying that the war in Ukraine and rising tensions between East and West required changes to Minsk’s security stance, warning a major confrontation could end in nuclear ‘apocalypse’.

‘Nuclear deterrence – those who will push us towards it should know about it and have a rational look at the straightforward consequences of their ill-considered decisions, to put it mildly,’ Lukashenko said. 

The long-serving Belarusian dictator and Vladimir Putin confirmed in December that the Kremlin planned to station some nuclear weapons in Belarus for the first time since the Soviet era.

The strongman also declared yesterday that he had moved a contingent of combat-ready troops from Vitebsk, 25 miles from Russia, closer to the border with Poland. 

‘A couple of battalions with a readiness of three hours’ had been moved to the western end of Belarus where they are ‘now standing head-to-head with NATO’. 

He said the move was justified because of the increased security threat amid the war in Ukraine and Western efforts to stoke conflict.

‘Washington is doing everything to drag our country into the conflict, to launch a mechanism to involve other states into it; in other words, to weaken both western Europe and eastern Europe.’

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