WARSAW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th July, 2023) Poland will raise the issue of the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear arms in Belarus at July's NATO Summit in Lithuania's capital Vilnius, Polish President Andrzej Duda said Wednesday.
"We all know Russian President Vladimir Putin's declarations about moving nuclear weapons to Belarus, as well as mercenaries from the Wagner group to Belarus. These are the processes that are happening right now. We have no doubt that these are absolutely changing the security situation in our region ... In this regard, we will definitely raise this topic at the NATO Summit and urge our NATO allies that the alliance quickly makes decisions to resolve these threats," Duda said in a televised appearance on Poland's broadcaster after a meeting with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda in Vilnius.
Putin said in mid-June that Moscow had transferred the first part of the nuclear warheads to Belarus and would complete the task of moving tactical nuclear weapons by the end of the year. Putin said the deployment was an element of deterrence and a signal to those thinking of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia.
In late June, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that Poland wants to host US nuclear weapons following Russia's deployment of tactical nuclear arms in Belarus. White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby later said that he had nothing to share regarding Poland's appeal to host US nuclear weapons, adding that Washington had seen no indications that Moscow had any intention to use either tactical or strategic nuclear weapons inside Ukraine or on the continent.
The Wagner Group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin seized an army headquarters in the Russian southern city of Rostov-on-Don on the night of June 23 and moved toward Moscow on the following day. Prigozhin presented his actions as a response to the alleged attack on his group's field camps by the defense ministry, which the latter denied. Prigozhin agreed to stop the mutiny after negotiations with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who acted at the request of Putin. Last week, Lukashenko confirmed that Prigozhin had arrived in Belarus.
