Officials warned about it Russian ally Belarus can join the offensive Ukraine and is preparing to allow Putin to deploy nuclear weapons on Belarusian soil.
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko has already allowed it Russia use his country to attack Ukraine, but has so far not given a direct order to troops to join the conflict.
A NATO intelligence official told NBC: “The Belarusian government is preparing an environment to justify the Belarusian offensive against Ukraine and the rapid deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus.
“I’m not telling you that they are going to put nuclear weapons there tomorrow. I mean, they have taken political steps to now be able to get nuclear weapons if such a decision is made.”
(Image: via REUTERS)
“If we are not at a dead end, we are fast approaching it,” the NATO official added.
“The reality is that neither side has an advantage over the other.”
The official, who remained anonymous because of the discussion of sensitive topics, said that although President Putin had not made significant progress in the past two weeks, he did not seem willing to admit failure.
(Image: Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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“So what happens when you have these two forces sharpening on each other in this way? The deaths and injuries will be quite serious, ”the NATO spokesman said.
“Neither side can win here. Neither side will capitulate. “
Other news has leaked figures on the death toll Russian the soldiers are there much higher than the Kremlin’s official figures, the new report shows.
The Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, almost 10,000. Putin It is reported that troops were killed after the war with Ukraine started on February 24th.
Leaked statistics claim that 9,861 soldiers were killed, far more than the last recorded figures of hundreds.
The discovery was published today (Monday, March 21) on Twitter by Yaroslav Trofimov, chief correspondent for foreign affairs of The Wall Street Journal.
“Komsomolskaya Pravda, a pro-Kremlin tabloid, reports that, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, 9,861 Russian soldiers were killed and 16,153 wounded in Ukraine,” he wrote.
“The last official Russian figure for KIA on March 2 was 498. Interestingly, someone published the leak.”
