...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...
revealed plans to station tactical atomic weapons in Belarus.
One Ukrainian official said that Russia "took Belarus as a nuclear hostage."
But Moscow said it was making the move in response to the West’s increasing military support for Ukraine. Putin announced the plan in a television interview that aired on Saturday, saying it was triggered by a UK decision this past week to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium.
Putin argued that by deploying its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russia was following the lead of the United States. He noted that Washington has nuclear weapons based in Belgium, Germany, Italia, the Netherlands, and
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire..."We are doing what they have been doing for decades, stationing them in certain allied countries, preparing the launch platforms and training their crews," he said.