Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko said Russia's plan to deploy nuclear weapons in the country would protect it from Western threats.
In his annual address on Friday, Reuters quoted Lukashenko as saying, “I am not trying to intimidate or blackmail anyone. I want to safeguard the Belarusian state and ensure peace for the Belarusian people." Lukashenko said western nations were building up their military forces in Poland and claimed they were planning to invade and destroy his country.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced last week that his country intended to deploy tactical, comparatively short-range and small-yield nuclear weapons in Belarus.
The Belarusian President said though Russia said the weapons would remain under its control, he suggested he could use them with Russia's agreement if Belarus was threatened with destruction, Reuters reported.
The strategic nuclear weapons such as missile-borne warheads that Lukashenko mentioned during his state-of-the-nation address would pose an even greater threat, if Moscow moves them to the territory of its neighbour and ally.
Belarus was a staging ground for amassing Russian troops before the invasion of Ukraine a little over 13 months ago.
Lukashenko, the only person to have served as president since the country's independence from the Soviet Union, delivered his annual address amid escalating tensions over the conflict in Ukraine.
Both he and Putin have alleged that Western powers want to ruin Russia and Belarus.
“Putin and I will decide and introduce here, if necessary, strategic weapons, and they must understand this, the scoundrels abroad, who today are trying to blow us up from inside and outside," the Belarusian leader said. "We will stop at nothing to protect our countries, our state and their peoples.”
(With PTI inputs.)