KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's government on Sunday called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. 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 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 U.K. decision last 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 Turkey.
"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.
Western officials condemned Putin's remarks as irresponsible, even as they said they saw no indication that Russia was making changes to how it deploys nuclear weapons.
Putin provided new details of a plan he first floated last year to base Russian weapons in Belarus, a close ally. He said 10 Belarusian warplanes have already been retrofitted to carry Russian nuclear weapons and that a storage facility for the warheads would be ready by July 1.
It was not clear whether Putin would in fact transfer Russian nuclear weapons into Belarus, and in the interview Putin was vague on the timeline for such a move. Analysts also pointed out that even if Russia were to transfer some of its warheads, the action wouldn't substantially change the nuclear threat posed by Russia since it can already target a vast range of territory from inside its own borders.
But Putin's comments in the interview underlined his continuing efforts to unsettle Western officials -- and Western public opinion -- with the prospect that the war in Ukraine could escalate into a nuclear conflict. Putin said the nuclear warheads Russia intended to position in Belarus were of the "tactical" variety, meaning they would be meant for battlefield use and have lower explosive power than the "strategic" type that can threaten entire cities.
In response to Putin's comments, a NATO spokesperson, Oana Lungescu, said Sunday that "we have not seen any changes in Russia's nuclear posture that would lead us to adjust our own," but she called Putin's rhetoric "dangerous and irresponsible."
Putin said in the interview that Russia had already transferred some nuclear-capable Iskander short-range missiles to Belarus, a step Russia announced last summer. Those missiles would have Ukrainian cities such as Kyiv within range, although Russia can already target the capital and other cities from its own territory.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry condemned the move in a statement Sunday and demanded an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
"Ukraine expects effective action to counter the Kremlin's nuclear blackmail by the U.K., China, the U.S. 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.
John Kirby, spokesperson for the National Security Council, told CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday that the United States was watching the matter closely, but he played down the potential for escalation.
"We've in fact seen no indication he has any intention to use nuclear weapons, period, inside Ukraine," Kirby said.
EXPLOSION IN RUSSIA
Ukraine has not commented on Sunday's drone explosion inside Russia. It left a crater about 50 feet in diameter and 16 feet deep, according to media reports.
Russian state-run news agency Tass reported that 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 620 miles.
The explosion took place in the town of Kireyevsk in the Tula region, about 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. Last 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 they 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.
Lukashenko's support of the war and Putin's plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus has been denounced by the Belarusian opposition.
Lukashenko did not immediately respond to Putin's comments, but they drew swift condemnation from Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, an exiled Belarusian opposition leader. She said the deployment "grossly contradicts the will of the Belarusian people to assume the non-nuclear-state status expressed in the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Belarus of 1990," and "directly violates the constitution."
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 U.S. 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."
Information for this article was contributed by Karl Ritter and Kirsten Grieshaber of The Associated Press and Anton Troianovski, Vivek Shankar and Andrew Higgins of The New York Times.
Gallery: Images from Ukraine and Russia, month 14
