From Vladimir Putin's point of view, the weekend brought good news from Ukraine.

After the eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk was taken by Russian troops after weeks of fighting, there were also reports from neighboring Lysychansk about Ukrainian retreat movements.

This brings the conquest of the entire Luhansk region, which the pro-Russian “People's Republic” proclaimed there, closer to being conquered.

Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu provided images from an undisclosed location purporting to show him visiting troops involved in the "special operation" against Ukraine and awarding soldiers who had rendered services to "the Fatherland".

In addition, early on Saturday morning, the Russian military used airstrikes in the north and west of Ukraine to remind that Putin had stated that the aim of the war was to "demilitarize" and "denazify" the entire neighboring country.

According to Ukrainian sources, one person was killed in another attack on the capital Kyiv on Sunday morning, and several other residents were injured when a rocket hit a residential building.

"Response" to NATO's nuclear sharing

The fact that some of the rockets on Saturday morning were fired by Russian warplanes from Belarusian airspace and soil, according to Ukrainian sources, caused a particular stir.

Observers brought this in connection with a reception of the Minsk ruler Alexandr Lukashenko by Putin in Saint Petersburg.

Later on Saturday, during this encounter, Putin announced a move that turned Belarus, which Lukashenko had been trying to stage for years as a mediator between Russia, Ukraine and the West until the mass protests against the rigging of the 2020 presidential election, into even more of a Russian outpost against the EU and NATO: Putin announced that he would "hand over" Iskander-M missile systems to Belarus in the coming months.

The mobile launch base can fire both short-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, "both conventional and nuclear," emphasized Putin alongside Lukashenko.

In addition, Putin pledged to Lukashenko to "modernize" the Belarusian air force's Su-25 fighter jets so that they could carry nuclear weapons and to train the pilots accordingly.

The two rulers presented this as a "response" to NATO's nuclear sharing, although this dates back to the Cold War era.

The Americans have 200 tactical nuclear weapons in six countries in Europe, Putin said.

For these weapons 257 aircraft would be available, American and other.

Putin said he and Lukashenko must take care of "unconditionally ensuring our security".

Lukashenko speaks of “declaration of war”

According to its constitution, Belarus was supposed to be a “nuclear weapons-free zone” and “neutral” until last spring.

In a reform, however, Lukashenko dropped these provisions.

At the end of last year, after a statement by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, according to which a possible German rejection of “nuclear sharing” could result in (American) nuclear weapons being transferred to other member states, including eastern member states, he announced that he would be involved in this case To inform Putin about the stationing of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus, those that are "most effective".

In the opinion of experts, only tactical nuclear weapons, such as the appropriately equipped Iskander systems, make military sense.

Lukashenko had already made it clear in mid-November that he wanted Russia's Iskander system for Belarus.

Relations with neighboring countries had tightened further after the Minsk regime had lured thousands of migrants, mostly Kurds from Iraq, into the country with promises of onward travel to the EU.

When Russia sent soldiers and equipment to Belarus, initially for joint maneuvers, before the invasion of Ukraine, Iskander systems were among them.

In mid-February, a week before the raid, Lukashenko said he would ask Russia to set up an Iskander training center in Belarus.

Then, in May, Lukashenko said he had agreed “with the Russians” to buy from Belarus the Iskander systems that were already “with us” – apparently the ones that had been brought to Belarus for the maneuvers.

For Lukashenko, Russia's handover of the Iskander systems would mean a political upgrade that some observers had thought unlikely given the potentially unstable situation in the country and the unreliability of the ruler.

In St. Petersburg, Lukashenko once again endeavored to confirm Putin in his threat scenarios, spoke, for example, of a "policy of confrontation" by Lithuania and Poland and compared the implementation of EU sanctions by Lithuania against Russian transport to the Kaliningrad exclave with a "declaration of war". .

However, it cannot be ruled out that Russian soldiers would operate the Iskander systems for the time being.

From NATO's point of view, the permanent stationing of the systems with an official range of up to 500 kilometers posed a threat to its entire eastern flank, to which the alliance could not respond immediately for lack of a comparable counterpart.