• Ukraine War Putin announces deal to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus

Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened on Saturday to order the use of depleted uranium shells in Ukraine if Ukraine receives such weapons from the West, after a British official mentioned that possibility.

"

Russia, of course, has something to respond with. We have, without exaggeration, tens of thousands of such howitzers. At the moment we have not used them," Putin said in an interview with Russian television.

Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process. It is about 60% less radioactive than natural uranium.

Uranium is a very dense metal: 1.7 times more than lead and is so hard that in a projectile it does not deform when it hits its target.

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7:25

"The EU wants to avoid "dependencies" with China as with Russian gas"

The head of diplomacy of the European Union, the Spanish Josep Borrell, said on Saturday that the bloc seeks to avoid "dependences" with China as it had with Russian gas and called to strengthen the commercial relationship with Latin America.

"Europe and Latin America have the opportunity to show that the commercial relationship is still a source of progress," Borrell said during his speech at the Ibero-American Summit in Santo Domingo, arguing that the need for "security" is imposed when talking about integration.

"We have discovered that the dependencies, which were elements that built peace, are also weapons that can be turned against us. Europe's excessive dependence on Russian gas made (Vladimir) Putin think that he could invade Ukraine with impunity because Europe would not react, prisoner as it was, of 40% of our gas consumption from Russia," he explained.

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7:00

Nuclear deployment in Belarus is 'another escalation of conflict'

The High Representative of Foreign Policy of the European Union (EU), Josep Borrell, said on Saturday that the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia in Belarus represents "another escalation of the conflict".

In an interview with EFE in Santo Domingo, where he is participating in the Ibero-American Summit, Borrell said that the deployment announced today by Russian President Vladimir Putin is also "another example of the collaboration of the dictatorial regime of Belarus with Russia."

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