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Russia and Belarus began on Tuesday joint military exercises focused on the use of nuclear weapons, which will extend until May 21, in what the Russian Defense Ministry described as exercises "for the preparation and application of nuclear forces in the face of an aggression threat."
According to a report from BBC, the exercises involve over 64,000 military personnel and more than 7,800 units of equipment, including more than 200 missile launchers, over 140 aircraft, 73 surface vessels, and 13 submarines.
The Strategic Missile Forces, the Northern and Pacific fleets, long-range aviation, and forces from the Leningrad and Central Military Districts are participating.
Moscow also confirmed that the exercises include "the preparation and joint use of nuclear weapons deployed in the territory of the Republic of Belarus", which positions Minsk as an active platform for Russian nuclear deterrence against NATO's borders.
The day before, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense had announced its own nuclear exercises coordinated with Russia, anticipating the joint announcement.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine reacted strongly, describing the exercises as a "unprecedented challenge to the global security architecture" and accusing both regimes of violating Articles I and II of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which prohibit nuclear states from transferring control of weapons of mass destruction and non-nuclear states from receiving it.
Kiev pointed out that "by converting Belarus into its nuclear base near NATO's borders, the Kremlin is de facto legitimizing the proliferation of nuclear weapons worldwide and setting a dangerous precedent for other authoritarian regimes."
Ukraine demanded a drastic increase in sanctions against Moscow and Minsk, greater military support for Kyiv, a strengthened allied presence on NATO's eastern flank, and deeper security cooperation with Ukraine.
These exercises are not the first of their kind. In September 2025, Russia and Belarus conducted the joint exercises Zapad-2025, which included training with nuclear and hypersonic capability systems, including the Oreshnik missile, near the borders of the Atlantic Alliance.
In May 2024, Putin had already ordered maneuvers of non-strategic nuclear forces in response to what Moscow described as "threats and provocative statements" from the West.
The international context heightens the concern: on February 5, 2026, the New START treaty—the last bilateral nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia—expired without being renewed or replaced, eliminating the last formal verifiable limits on the strategic arsenals of both powers.
Belarus, which renounced Soviet nuclear weapons in the 1990s and signed the NPT as a non-nuclear state, has effectively reversed that stance since Putin announced the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons on its territory in March 2023, completed in June of the same year.
Ukraine warned that "the audacity of Moscow and Minsk, which have deliberately crossed all the red lines of the NPT, cannot go unanswered by the Euro-Atlantic community and the rest of the world."
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