▲ Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko at their meeting in Minsk.Photo Kremlin via Ap
Juan Pablo Duch
Correspondent
La Jornada Newspaper
Saturday, December 7, 2024, p. 20
Moscow. By signing in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, a treaty of security guarantees between Russia and Belarus, the head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, yesterday promised to satisfy the request of his host, Aleksandr Lukashenko, to install bases in the territory of the neighboring Slavic country for new generation hypersonic ballistic missiles Oreshnik (Hazel), in mid-2025, depending on how series production prospers.
Your answer leaves me calm. In mid-2025 (we will have those missiles). Abusing our friendship, I want to tell you that if you want to get something from Putin you just have to get him to promise it in publicLukashenko joked.
These are missiles launched by Russia in the experimental phase (without the 10 consecutive and successful tests required, according to Soviet military manuals), which can carry up to six nuclear warheads.
A Hazel was launched against a military industry consortium in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on November 21 in response to the attack against the Russian regions of Bryansk and Kursk with long-range weapons (up to 300 kilometers) with rockets Atacms Americans and Storm Shadow British, and its French variant Scalp.
In this regard, military analysts do not understand why Belarus needs to have this type of weapons on its territory, in theory of an atomic order, when it has already authorized the installation of Russian missile systems on its soil. Iskander-Mwhich can also carry nuclear charges.
And if it was Moscow that insisted that Minsk have those missiles, which on the other hand the Belarusians will not be able to handle as they please, leaving it up to the Russian military to decide when and where to apply those weapons, they also see no strategic sense in installing them there, because The Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, the former Prussian capital of Königsberg, is much closer to potential targets of the North Atlantic alliance than Belarus.
Taking into account that the Russian president stressed that it will still be necessary to define the range of action of these missiles based on the security needs of Belarus – you do not have to be an expert to understand that the closer the target is to the greater the explosive charge is possible, Lukashenko’s request to Putin seems like the umpteenth warning from Moscow to Minsk’s neighbors, who make up the southern flank of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), that is, the Baltic countries, Poland and Romania, first.
Putin, for the same reason, offered that Russia is willing to defend Belarus with “all the forces and resources at its disposal, including tactical nuclear weapons (missiles). Iskander-M), deployed in its territory at the request of the Belarusian president.”
The treaty signed by Putin and Lukashenko, which authorizes the use of nuclear weapons in the event of foreign aggression that calls into question the sovereignty of one or both of them, stipulates their obligations in terms of defending their independence, territorial integrity and constitutional order.
Furthermore, it ensures the inviolability of the borders of the sort of union of states – a supranational structure that does not end up configuring a Confederation –, created 25 years ago by Lukashenko himself and the previous Russian president, Boris Yeltsin.