The Belarusian opposition has no concrete data that nuclear weapons are already in Belarus, but the infrastructure for them is there.
“Our partisans on the railway, they monitor what goes from Russia to Belarus, if we already have a certain understanding that weapons are coming, we will of course pass this on to our Ukrainian partners and foreign partners, but at the moment I can’t say for sure (that weapons have already been deployed),” she said.
Tikhanovska considers the recent nuclear exercises in Belarus as “pressure and blackmail” that are aimed not only at Ukraine, but also at European allies.
“And so, of course, they need to show that Lukashenko and Putin are together, that Lukashenko is following Putin’s orders and, of course, we need to follow very closely what is happening in the country,” she added.
Tikhanovskaya notes that the democratic forces “have very good sources of information” from Belarus.
Russia and its ally Belarus held nuclear drills last week amid escalating drone attacks on Russia. On 19 May, Moscow announced the start of a large-scale strategic nuclear force exercise involving the entire nuclear triad: intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines and strategic bombers.
On 21 May, the last day of the exercise, the Ministries of Defence of Russia and Belarus reported that nuclear warheads had been delivered to the Belarusian territory as part of the nuclear exercises of the two countries’ militaries. The Belarusian Defence Ministry also stated that a missile unit simulated missile launches at certain targets.