- Belarus's Lukashenko says there can be 'nuclear weapons for everyone'
- What happens when Belarus loses its dictator?
- Belarus starts receiving tactical nuclear weapons from Russia, President Alexander Lukashenko says
Download: Belarus president alexander lukashenko
Size: 76.33 MB
Belarus's Lukashenko says there can be 'nuclear weapons for everyone'
May 29 (Reuters) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that if any other country wanted to join a Russia-Belarus union there could be "nuclear weapons for everyone". Russia moved ahead last week with a plan to deploy tactical In an interview on Russia's state television late on Sunday, Lukashenko, President Vladimir Putin's staunchest ally among Russia's neighbours, said that it must be "strategically understood" that Minsk and Moscow have a unique chance to unite. "No one is against Kazakhstan and other countries having the same close relations that we have with the Russian Federation," Lukashenko said. "If someone is worried ... (then) it is very simple: join in the Union State of Belarus and Russia. That's all: there will be nuclear weapons for everyone." He added that it was his own view - not the view of Russia. Russia and Belarus are formally part of a Union State, a borderless union and alliance between the two former Soviet republics. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, whose nation of 20 million people has close historical ties with Moscow but has refused to recognise Russia's annexation of parts of Ukraine, dismissed Lukashenko's invitation to join the union. "I appreciated his joke," Tokayev's office quoted him as saying on Telegram, adding that Kazakhstan was already a member of a broader Russian-led trade bloc, the Eurasian Economic Union, so no further integration was necessary. "As for nuclear weapons, we do not need them because we have joine...
What happens when Belarus loses its dictator?
A LEXANDER LUKASHENKO, the The rumours about his health began on May 9th, after he was escorted away in a buggy during Russia’s Victory Day parade in Moscow, while other foreign leaders accompanied Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. Mr Lukashenko then skipped a celebratory lunch. On May 14th he missed a state event marking Belarus’s Flag Day. Independent media reported that the 68-year-old had been taken to a clinic with suspected viral heart inflammation, which is treatable. On the following day his press service sought to quell rumours about his health by releasing a video showing the barrel-chested Mr Lukashenko conferring with military officers. He sounded hoarse, but well enough to assert his authority. Even so, speculation about who will succeed him has begun. Belarus’s constitution outlines the formal process in the event of Mr Lukashenko’s death. A presidential election would probably be called between 30 and 70 days later. The speaker of the upper house of parliament, Natalya Kochanova, a trusted footsoldier of Mr Lukashenko’s, would govern in the interim. But in practice the new leader will emerge from a struggle involving Belarus’s security elite and Russia, says Nigel Gould-Davies of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think-tank in London. Mr Lukashenko has chosen no successor. He may be grooming his younger son, Kolya, for the top job: the teenager appeared by his father’s side during the crackdown on protesters in 2020. Mr Lukashenko has st...
Belarus starts receiving tactical nuclear weapons from Russia, President Alexander Lukashenko says
Lukashenko said Tuesday that "everything is ready" for the Russian nuclear weapons' deployment, adding that "it could take just a few days for us to get what we had asked for and even a bit more." Asked later by a Russian state TV host whether Belarus had already received some of the weapons, Lukashenko responded coyly by saying: "Not all of them, little by little." "We have missiles and bombs that we have received from Russia," he said.
