Putin's tactical nuke move raises the stakes

It didn't take long for Putin to turn to Russia's estimated 2,000 tactical nukes to further raise the stakes in the Ukraine war. Previously he had warned the West that he could use these weapons if pushed but now he has announced he is going to deploy some of them to Belarus, the only country of the former Soviet Union that actually still has amicable relations with Moscow. Belarus of course is ruled by an autocrat who makes even Putin look less like a Mafia chief. So using Belarus to house nuclear weapons is probably the most unstable thing Putin has done since he sent his troops over the border into Ukraine. Bizarrely Putin is saying he has been forced into this deployment to counter the threat posed by the depleted uranium shells the UK is planning to send to Ukraine along with Challenger 2 tanks. Even schoolboy chemists know this argument is facile. Depleted uranium-tipped shells can pierce heavily armoured tanks better than normal armour. But they can hardly be classed as nuclear weapons as Putin seems to be implying. But confirmation from the UK that these sort of shells will be sent to Ukraine has given Putin what he believes is just cause for retaliating with the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. To be honest he didn't need an excuse, he was probably always going to send nukes to Belarus because its leader Alexander Lukashenko is desperate to curry favour with Putin and was happy to go along with the construction of hangars and storage sites for these weapons. The world is getting more dangerous by the day.