A woman and a child walk past a damaged building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on Dec. 14. Russia's March annexation of Crimea triggered rebellions in eastern Ukraine that continue. (Vasily Maximov / AFP/Getty Images)
Russia has the right to deploy nuclear weapons in the
Crimean peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in March, a top Russian
official said Monday.
“Crimea was not a non-nuclear zone in an international law
sense but was part of Ukraine, a state which doesn't possess nuclear arms,”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with Interfax news
agency. “Now Crimea has become part of a state which possesses such weapons in
accordance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
There is absolutely no military sense in deploying nuclear
weapons in Crimea.
- Alexander Golts, a leading defense and political expert
“In accordance with international law,” he added, “Russia
has every reason to dispose of its nuclear arsenal ... to suit its interests
and international legal obligations.”
Russia annexed Crimea following a disputed regional
referendum after thousands of Russian troops in unmarked uniforms seized the
peninsula.
The Russian action triggered rebellions in eastern Ukraine’s
Donbas coal region that continue today, with pro-Russia gunmen controlling
sizable parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and of the border between
Russia and Ukraine.
Ukraine, which accuses Russia of invading its territory and
backing militants in the east, has demanded that Moscow withdraw its troops and
military hardware from the east and return Crimea.
The Kremlin claims Crimea is legally part of Russia, denies
any presence of its troops in mainland Ukraine and in turn blames Kiev for
unleashing a war on its own people struggling for wider autonomy.
Seven recent blasts in Ukraine city stir fear of new Russian
menace
Seven recent blasts in Ukraine city stir fear of new Russian
menace
In his state of the nation address Russian President
Vladimir Putin pledged that Crimea would forever stay part of Russia, backing
his nation’s claim to the peninsula with a reference to Viking Prince
Vladimir’s baptism in Crimea in the 10th century, which led to the spread of
Christianity to Russia.
Lavrov's statement on Monday was yet another message to
Ukraine and the rest of the world that Russia will never hand the region back,
said Alexander Golts, a leading Russia defense and political expert.
“There is absolutely no military sense in deploying nuclear
weapons in Crimea,” Golts, deputy editor in chief of Yezhednevny Zhurnal, a
popular liberal online publication, said in an interview with The Times.
“Lavrov has brought up this nuclear weapons issue to demonstrate that the
Kremlin considers Crimea such an inalienable part of Russia that it may choose
to do with it whatever it wants, including the deployment of nukes.”
Russia can't move its strategic nuclear forces around the
country without officially verifying this process with the United States unless
it wants to withdraw from the 2010 New START treaty, Golts said.
“In 1994, Presidents Boris Yeltsin and George Bush Sr. both
pledged they were removing tactical nuclear weapons from military units to be
kept in special storage bases from then on,” he said. “There are no such bases
or installations in Crimea.”Lavrov's comments are designed for the most part
for “brainwashing the public at home into believing Russia is surrounded by
enemies,” said Yuri Butusov, a top Ukrainian political and military expert.
“Nowadays even the efforts of the Russian Foreign Ministry
seem to be aimed at making the Russian people think that they are living in a
besieged fortress,” Butusov, editor in chief of Censor.net, an online
publication, said in a phone interview from Kiev. “How else can the Kremlin
explain the crashing ruble and the soaring prices?
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