Belarus Starts Nuclear Drills With Russia After Kyiv’s Warnings

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(Bloomberg) — Belarus announced that its armed forces would conduct snap nuclear exercises alongside Russian allies, following warnings from Kyiv that it could retaliate if Minsk becomes more deeply involved in the Kremlin’s war.

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Missile units and the air force will practice the use and delivery of nuclear weapons in “unprepared locations” across Belarus, the defense ministry in Minsk said in a statement on Monday. It didn’t specify whether the drills would involve real nuclear warheads or merely simulate handling them.

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The statement said the “planned training event” was not directed at third parties and “poses no threat to the security of the region.”

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The Kremlin has used Belarus, which borders three NATO member states, to project its power in eastern Europe. Longtime President Alexander Lukashenko allowed Russia to use Belarus’s territory as a launchpad for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The next year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow had deployed some of its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, followed by long-range Oreshnik missiles in 2025.

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The drills were announced after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned on Friday that Russia may be preparing to get Belarus more deeply involved in its war in Ukraine. That could take the form of attacks on Ukraine’s Chernihiv region, its capital Kyiv, or on one of Belarus’s NATO neighbors, Zelenskiy said, adding that he’d instructed his military to draw up plans in response.

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Ukraine has refrained from striking targets inside Belarus throughout the war, even though Russia initially launched missiles from Belarus and Minsk provided logistical support to Russian forces without deploying its own troops into combat.

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Earlier this year, Kyiv accused Russia of placing technical equipment inside Belarus to guide Shahed drones that have caused major damage to Ukraine’s energy and civilian infrastructure. Zelenskiy said in February that Ukraine had neutralized some of the transmitters inside Belarus but didn’t explain how that was achieved.

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Ukraine has recently detected signs that Russia may be using transmitters deeper inside Belarus, Serhiy Beskrestnov, an adviser to Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, said on Sunday. The paths of Shahed drones, flying 500 kilometers (310 miles) deep into Ukrainian territory along the border with Belarus, suggest guidance equipment may again be operating from Belarusian soil, he said.

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“So far, these are isolated cases,” Beskrestnov said. “Ukraine’s Defense Forces are keeping this issue under control. We never take any measures without being 100% certain.”

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