Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko attends a press conference in Minsk, Belarus July 6, 2023. (Photo: Reuters)

President Vladimir Putin announced a plan in March to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Moscow’s first move of such warheads outside Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union. 

Lukashenko told reporters no one wanted to attack the United States or European powers with the nuclear weapons, saying they were exclusively defensive. 

The Federation of American Scientists said in a research note last month that it had yet to find visual evidence that conclusively indicated the presence of an active nuclear weapons facility on the territory of Belarus.