Russia moves nuclear warheads to Belarus

On 21 May, Russia moved tactical nuclear warheads to field positions held by an Iskander-M missile brigade inside Belarus. The warheads did not return to storage. Both defence ministries released footage showing Belarusian crews loading mobile launchers and moving them to concealed firing positions (Euronews, Euromaidanpress). Whether the warheads contained actual fissile material remains impossible to verify independently. Moscow and Minsk say they did.

Tactical nuclear warheads are usually kept in reinforced bunkers, separate from the missiles designed to carry them. They are assembled with the delivery system only shortly before potential use. Moving them to operational firing positions removes that physical pause in the chain. Russia did this openly, during exercises involving tens of thousands of troops, and then left the warheads there.

The Baltic Stress Test

The deployment came at the end of two weeks of pressure on NATO’s north-eastern flank. On 20 May, a drone entered Lithuania from Belarusian airspace and triggered the country’s first nationwide shelter alert since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The president and members of parliament were evacuated, Vilnius airport closed, and NATO jets were scrambled. The drone was never found.

Latvia was hit harder. A drone crash near Rēzekne on 7 May exposed air defence gaps serious enough to bring down the government. Prime Minister Siliņa dismissed her defence minister over the failure. When his party quit the coalition, she resigned on 14 May. Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, then named specific Latvian military bases and threatened retaliation. Latvia became the first NATO member whose government fell in direct connection with drone incursions from the east.

Defence analysts in Tallinn have called the sequence a “mass disruption weapon”. Whether Moscow deliberately lined up nuclear deployment, drone penetrations and intelligence threats, or simply took advantage of crises happening at the same time, remains unclear. The effect is easier to measure: three Baltic capitals unsettled within two weeks, and one allied government gone.

Europe’s Fractured Deterrence

France has tried to offer a European answer. At a summit in Gdańsk in April, President Macron extended French nuclear deterrence to Poland and seven other allies. It was the first time a French president had opened the country’s nuclear umbrella beyond France itself. But launch authority remains entirely with the French president. The guarantee lasts only as long as the political will of whoever occupies the Elysée.

Germany is preparing for a different timetable. Inspector General Breuer, the head of Germany’s armed forces, the Bundeswehr, has warned publicly that Russia could test NATO with large-scale military operations by 2029. Berlin plans to increase defence spending sharply before then. But a planned deployment of US long-range missiles to Germany has quietly collapsed. Those weapons were meant to fill part of the gap left after the INF Treaty, which banned intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe, ended in 2019. No replacement has been announced.

The American military presence in Europe is also being reduced. The Pentagon is cutting its European combat brigades from four to three. President Trump announced 5,000 additional troops for Poland, but Polish Deputy Defence Minister Tomczyk said the situation required a “diplomatic offensive”, a sign that no agreement has yet been reached. Three days before that announcement, NATO’s supreme allied commander confirmed that troops were already being withdrawn from Europe.

For Malta, a neutral EU state outside NATO, this is still domestic European politics. The EU has no nuclear deterrent of its own, while the security guarantees that protect much of the bloc run through NATO and Washington. When those guarantees look less settled, the whole EU security conversation shifts, including for countries that do not sit at the NATO table.

NATO Secretary General Rutte warned of "devastating consequences" for any nuclear use. The EU, at the ongoing NPT Review Conference, where signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty assess compliance, called on Moscow and Minsk to "reverse this decision". Neither NATO nor the EU announced concrete changes to their military posture.

Lukashenko does not hold the launch codes. Moscow keeps sole authority over the warheads. Belarus provides the geography. From Belarusian territory, the Iskander-M can reach Warsaw, Vilnius and Riga. No one outside Moscow knows how many warheads are there, or how long they will remain.