US President Biden calls Putin’s statements about the stationing of nuclear weapons in Belarus “dangerous”. The Russian embassy has accused the US of downplaying its alleged involvement in the Nord Stream explosion. All developments in the live blog.
2:57 a.m
Biden calls Putin’s statements on nuclear weapons deployment ‘dangerous’
US President Joe Biden has denounced Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin’s statements on the stationing of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus as “dangerous”. “It’s worrying”. Putin announced on Saturday that Russian tactical nuclear weapons would be stationed in neighboring Belarus. Washington immediately criticized the plans. Belarus is a close ally of Russia, and Russian troops are stationed there for deployment in Ukraine. However, US government officials made it clear that there is no evidence to date that Russia has already transferred nuclear weapons to Belarus. “They haven’t done it yet,” Biden said.
Meanwhile, the Russian ambassador in Stockholm warned the West that if Sweden and Finland joined NATO, they would become “legitimate targets” for Russian “retaliatory measures,” including those of a military nature. Viktor Tatarintsev stated on the website of the Russian embassy in Sweden that after the two countries join NATO, Russia’s border with NATO would “almost double”. With its NATO membership application, Sweden is taking a step towards the “precipice”.
2:57 a.m
Russian Embassy: US downplays involvement in Nord Stream blast
The Russian embassy in the United States has accused the US government of downplaying incriminating information about its alleged involvement in the explosions at the Nord Stream pipelines. The Washington government is doing “everything possible” to prevent an “impartial investigation” into the circumstances of the blasts, the embassy wrote after Russia’s failure to get the UN Security Council to conduct an investigation into the September incident.
“We see this as an apparent attempt…to downplay information from respected journalists that is incriminating to the United States concerning the likely direct involvement of American intelligence agencies,” the embassy wrote. In a February blog post, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh quoted an unidentified insider as saying that US Navy divers had destroyed the pipelines with explosives on orders from President Joe Biden. The US President’s Office dismissed the report as “completely false and fictitious”.