Minsk ruler Alexandr Lukashenko is threatening the West with the use of nuclear weapons. "The scoundrels on the other side of the border, who today are trying to blow us up from the outside as well as from the inside, must understand: We will stop at nothing to protect our countries, our states, our peoples," Lukashenko told followers about himself and the Russian president on Friday.

Friedrich Schmidt

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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He praised Vladimir Putin's recent announcement of the stationing of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus and said that "if need be," Putin and he would decide to bring strategic nuclear weapons back to Belarus.

"But nobody cuddled in front of anyone"

The Soviet nuclear weapons had been brought to Russia in the nineties.

Lukashenko described the tactical nuclear weapons, which Putin says should not be "handed over" to Belarus, as "terrible weapons." Nuclear weapons should be stationed in Belarus that are "two or three times stronger than those thrown at Hiroshima and Nagasaki." It should not be said that they are kept only in Belarus. "These are our weapons that will contribute to sovereignty and independence."

He was getting "signals" that he had "cuddled" to Putin, Lukashenko said. "But nobody cuddled in front of anyone." Lukashenko called for a ceasefire over the Ukraine war and said that if the Russian leadership felt that a "disintegration of Russia" was imminent, it would use nuclear weapons.