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Belarus Units Complete Training on Russian Tactical Nuclear Missile Systems

Russian Iskander-E missile launcher operates during International Military and Technical Forum 2022 in Alabino outside Moscow, Russia August 17, 2022. (Reuters)
Russian Iskander-E missile launcher operates during International Military and Technical Forum 2022 in Alabino outside Moscow, Russia August 17, 2022. (Reuters)
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Belarus Units Complete Training on Russian Tactical Nuclear Missile Systems

Russian Iskander-E missile launcher operates during International Military and Technical Forum 2022 in Alabino outside Moscow, Russia August 17, 2022. (Reuters)
Russian Iskander-E missile launcher operates during International Military and Technical Forum 2022 in Alabino outside Moscow, Russia August 17, 2022. (Reuters)

Units from Belarus returned home from Russia on Saturday after training on how to use the Iskander tactical missile system to launch nuclear weapons, the Belarusian defense ministry said.

It made the announcement exactly four weeks after President Vladimir Putin said Russia would station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, sending a warning to NATO over its military support for Ukraine.

In early February, Belarus said its armed forces were in autonomous control of Iskander mobile guided missile systems that Russia had already provided.

But when the units were sent to Russia on April 4 for additional training, Minsk made clear their sessions would include study of "the maintenance and use of tactical nuclear warheads of the Iskander missile defense system".

Those units returned to Belarus on Saturday, the defense ministry said on Telegram.

Russia has not given a clear timetable for moving tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, but Putin said the construction of storage facilities should be complete by the start of July.

It will be the first deployment of part of Russia's nuclear arsenal outside its borders since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

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Russian Troops Push into Ukraine’s Sumy Region

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire following a Russian attack in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire following a Russian attack in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
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Russian Troops Push into Ukraine’s Sumy Region

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire following a Russian attack in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire following a Russian attack in Sumy, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

Russia said on Sunday that its troops had taken the village of Basivka in Ukraine's northeastern Sumy region, and were battering Ukrainian forces at a host of settlements in the area.

More than two years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv sent thousands of troops over the border into Russia's Kursk region in August last year though a Russian offensive over recent months has pushed most of Ukrainian forces out of Kursk.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly suggested that Russian forces carve out a buffer zone along the border.

Russia's defense ministry said that it had taken the village of Basivka, just over the border from Sudzha, and had struck Ukrainian forces at 12 other points in the Sumy region.

Ukrainian officials later denied the report, saying Russian forces were not in control of Basivka.

"As of today, the Russians do not control Basivka in Sumy region. They are trying to run in there in assault groups and look for cellars in order to gain a foothold, but the enemy is being destroyed," Andriy Kovalenko, an official of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said on Telegram messenger.

"The fighting in the Sumy region border area is complex and continues daily in several areas, and is also taking place in the Kursk border area," he added.

Russia's defense ministry also said that Russia had defeated Ukrainian units in the Russian settlements of Gornal, Guevo and Oleshnya.

The pro-Ukrainian DeepState war map shows Ukraine in control of about 63 square kilometers (24 square miles) of Russian territory, down from as much as 1,400 square kilometers claimed by Kyiv last year.

Another 81 square kilometers of territory along the border - including Basivka - is classed by DeepState as of "unknown" control.

Russia currently controls a little under one fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea which Russia annexed in 2014, and most but not all of four other regions which Moscow now claims are part of Russia - a claim not recognized by most countries.

Russia controls all of Crimea, almost all of Luhansk, and more than 70% of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, according to Russian estimates. It also controls a sliver of Kharkiv region.