Ukraine demands emergency UN meeting over Putin nuclear plan

Vladimir Putin revealed plans to station tactical atomic weapons in Belarus in a television interview that aired on Sunday. (AP)
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Updated 26 March 2023
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Ukraine demands emergency UN meeting over Putin nuclear plan

  • Putin said his plan was triggered by a UK decision this past week to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium

KYIV: Ukraine’s government on Sunday called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to “counter the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail” after Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed plans to station tactical atomic weapons in Belarus.
One Ukrainian official said Russia “took Belarus as a nuclear hostage.”
Further heightening tensions, an explosion deep inside Russia wounded three people Sunday. Russian authorities blamed a Ukrainian drone for the blast, which damaged residential buildings in a town just 175 kilometers (110 miles) south of Moscow.
Russia has said the plan to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus comes in response to the West’s increasing military support for Ukraine. Putin announced the plan in a TV interview that aired Saturday, saying it was triggered by a UK decision this past week to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium.
Putin argued that by deploying its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russia was following the lead of the United States. He noted that Washington has nuclear weapons based in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkiye.
“We are doing what they have been doing for decades, stationing them in certain allied countries, preparing the launch platforms and training their crews,” he said.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry condemned the move in a statement Sunday and demanded an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.
“Ukraine expects effective action to counter the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail by the UK, China, the US and France,” the statement read, saying these countries “have a special responsibility” regarding nuclear aggression.
“The world must be united against someone who endangers the future of human civilization,” the statement said.
Ukraine has not commented on Sunday’s explosion inside Russia. It left a crater about 15 meters (50 feet) in diameter and five meters deep (16 feet), according to media reports.
Russian state-run news agency Tass reported authorities identified the drone as a Ukrainian Tu-141. The Soviet-era drone was reintroduced in Ukraine in 2014, and has a range of about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).
The explosion took place in the town of Kireyevsk in the Tula region, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) from the border with Ukraine. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the drone crashed after an electronic jamming system disabled its navigation.
Similar drone attacks have been common during the war, although Ukraine hardly ever acknowledges responsibility. On Monday, Russia said Ukrainian drones attacked civilian facilities in the town of Dzhankoi in Russia-annexed Crimea. Ukraine’s military said several Russian cruise missiles were destroyed, but did not specifically claim responsibility.
In December, the Russian military reported several Ukrainian drone attacks on long-range bomber bases deep inside Russia. The Russian Defense Ministry said the drones were shot down, but acknowledged that their debris damaged some aircraft and killed several servicemen.
Also, Russian authorities have reported attacks by small drones in the Bryansk and Belgorod regions on the border with Ukraine.
On Saturday, Putin argued that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has long asked to have nuclear weapons in his country again to counter NATO. Belarus shares borders with three NATO members — Latvia, Lithuania and Poland — and Russia used Belarusian territory as a staging ground to send troops into neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
Both Lukashenko’s support of the war and Putin’s plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus has been denounced by the Belarusian opposition.
Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, tweeted Sunday that Putin’s announcement was “a step toward internal destabilization” of Belarus that maximized “the level of negative perception and public rejection” of Russia and Putin in Belarusian society. The Kremlin, Danilov added, “took Belarus as a nuclear hostage.”
Tactical nuclear weapons are intended for use on the battlefield and have a short range and a low yield compared with much more powerful nuclear warheads fitted to long-range missiles. Russia plans to maintain control over the ones it sends to Belarus, and construction of storage facilities for them will be completed by July 1, Putin said.
Russia has stored its tactical nuclear weapons at dedicated depots on its territory, and moving part of the arsenal to a storage facility in Belarus would up the ante in the Ukrainian conflict by placing them closer to Russian aircraft and missiles already stationed there.
The US said it would “monitor the implications” of Putin’s announcement. So far, Washington hasn’t seen “any indications Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.
In Germany, the foreign ministry called it a “further attempt at nuclear intimidation,” German news agency dpa reported late Saturday. The ministry went on to say that “the comparison drawn by President Putin to NATO’s nuclear participation is misleading and cannot be used to justify the step announced by Russia.”


Trump says US will sign Ukraine minerals deal soon

Updated 4 sec ago
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Trump says US will sign Ukraine minerals deal soon

  • Trump says peace talks going ‘pretty well’
  • Ukraine minerals deal seen as repayment for US aid

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said on Thursday the United States will sign a minerals and natural resources deal with Ukraine shortly and that his efforts to achieve a peace deal for the country were going “pretty well” after his talks this week with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders.
Trump made the comments at a White House event after signing an order to increase US production of critical minerals.
“We’re doing very well with regard to Ukraine and Russia. And one of the things we are doing is signing a deal very shortly with respect to rare earths with Ukraine.”
Trump referred to his separate discussions this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Those talks, which fell short of Trump’s aim to secure a full 30-day ceasefire, resulted in Putin agreeing to stop Russian attacks on energy infrastructure for 30 days and Zelensky saying he would also accept such a pause.
“We would love to see that (war) come to an end, and I think we’re doing pretty well in that regard,” Trump said.
“So hopefully we’d save thousands of people a week from dying. That’s what it’s all about. They’re dying so unnecessarily, and I believe we’ll get it done.”
Ukraine and the US said this month they had agreed to conclude as soon as possible a comprehensive agreement for developing Ukraine’s critical mineral resources, which Trump sees as a means to pay back the United States for its assistance to Kyiv. Efforts to seal the deal stumbled after a disastrous White House meeting between Trump and Zelensky at the end of last month.
Trump and Zelensky agreed on Wednesday to work together to end Russia’s war with Ukraine, in what the White House described as a “fantastic” one-hour phone call, their first conversation since their Oval Office shouting match that resulted in a short-term cutoff in US military aid and intelligence to Kyiv.
It was unclear if the deal has changed. An earlier version did not include the explicit security guarantees Ukraine has sought, but gave the US access to revenues from Ukraine’s natural resources.
It also envisaged the Ukrainian government contributing 50 percent of monetized amounts for state-owned natural resources to a US-Ukraine managed reconstruction investment fund.
Asked how the current version of the minerals deal differs from the earlier draft, a senior US official said it was “more detailed and comprehensive,” declining to elaborate.
Ukraine’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In Brussels on Thursday, European Union leaders said they would continue to support Ukraine, but did not immediately endorse a call by Zelensky to approve a package of at least 5 billion euros for artillery purchases.


Macron announces new Ukraine ‘coalition’ summit in Paris on March 27

Updated 7 min 35 sec ago
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Macron announces new Ukraine ‘coalition’ summit in Paris on March 27

BRUSSELS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said the leaders of a coalition of Ukraine backers would meet again in Paris next week, hoping to finalize plans to secure a potential truce in the war with Russia.

“We will hold another meeting of the coalition of the willing next Thursday in Paris in presence of President (Volodymyr) Zelensky,” Macron told reporters following an EU summit.


Trump signs order to ‘eliminate’ US Education Department

Updated 19 min 34 sec ago
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Trump signs order to ‘eliminate’ US Education Department


North Korea’s Kim oversees test of latest anti-aircraft missile system: state media

Updated 22 min 27 sec ago
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North Korea’s Kim oversees test of latest anti-aircraft missile system: state media

SEOUL: North Korea on Thursday conducted a test fire of its latest anti-aircraft missile system in a drill watched by leader Kim Jong Un, Pyongyang’s state media reported.
The launch proved the system’s “combat fast response,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, and came just over a week after South Korea began a major annual joint military drill with the United States.


M23 group seizes key town in eastern DR Congo

Updated 21 March 2025
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M23 group seizes key town in eastern DR Congo

  • Capture of Walikale leaves rebels in control of road linking 4 provinces

GOMA: Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have entered the center of the eastern Congo town of Walikale, a local activist and an M23 source said on Thursday, expanding the insurgents’ presence deep into the Congolese interior despite renewed calls for a ceasefire.

Their entry into Walikale, an area rich in minerals including tin, followed fighting on Wednesday with the Democratic Republic of Congo’s army and allied militias on the outskirts of the town.

The town’s capture would leave the rebels, who took eastern Congo’s two largest cities earlier this year, in control of a road linking four eastern Congo provinces and within 400 km of Kisangani, the country’s fourth-biggest city.

“The rebels are now visible in the city’s center,” said Fiston Misona, a civil society activist in Walikale.

“There are at least seven people wounded who are at the general hospital.”

An M23 source said the rebels were in complete control of the town.

A spokesperson for Congo’s army did not respond to requests for comment about the situation in Walikale.

The rebels’ move on Walikale, a town of about 15,000 people, came despite calls on Tuesday by Congo President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame for an immediate ceasefire after their first direct talks since M23 stepped up its offensive in January.

The conflict, rooted in the fallout from Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and competition for mineral riches, has quickly become eastern Congo’s worst conflict since a 1998-2003 war that drew in multiple neighboring countries.

Rwanda has been supporting the ethnic Tutsi-led rebels by providing arms and sending troops, according to the UN, Western governments, and independent experts.

Rwanda has denied backing M23 and says its military has been acting in self-defense against Congo’s army and a militia founded by some of the perpetrators of the genocide.