After Britain decided to send depleted uranium tanks and ammunition to Ukraine, Putin replies that he plans to store nuclear weapons in Belarus. This is according to an agreement with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Lieutenant Colonel Joakim Paasikivi says the Russian announcement was relatively expected.

"It has been discussed that Belarus should be given this opportunity. The fact that it is now being effected is not very surprising and it is also predictable that Russia is trying to tie it to some other event that is relevant, but this has been planned for a long time.

Big step to use them

He says the nuclear threats are the last card Russia has left to try to intimidate the West.

"Going from there to actually using nuclear weapons is an incredibly big step and I don't think you're prepared to take it. However, I believe that we will have more nuclear threats in the future.

According to Putin, the move does not affect previous agreements not to spread nuclear weapons and that his actions are no different from how the U.S. has stationed nuclear weapons in Europe, Reuters reports.

- There's nothing strange about this. First of all, this is what the United States has been doing for decades. We agreed that we would do the same thing – without breaking our global agreements," Putin said on Russian state television.

'Considerably more threatening'

Paasikivi believes that it is possible to make a logistical comparison but that the nations' actions differ in other respects:

"Russia is an aggressive imperialist country waging war against a neighbouring country and it is considerably more threatening. It also differs who owns these nuclear weapons whether you take war against neighboring countries or not.

Ten aircraft adapted to carry nuclear weapons are reported to have already been moved to Belarus. The plan is for the weapons supply to be completed by July 1 this year and controlled by Russia, according to Putin.