World is 'one minute to doomsday', warns Putin nuclear ally Belarus

Putin's nuclear power ally Belarus has warned the world is 'one minute to doomsday' - as it takes delivery of Russian nuclear warheads which could hit London within eight minutes of being fired.

Speaking at the UN this week, foreign minister for Belarus Maxim Ryzhenkov warned the world is the 'closest ever' to midnight on the doomsday clock, some three years after Russia's Vladimir Putin launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine.

It comes as Russia sends more nuclear missiles to be stationed in Belarus, with which it shares a border, in a move that is certain to increase the already-high tensions between Russia and the West.

In a recent interview, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko said that feared Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missiles are now 'on the way' to his country, from where they could hit London within eight minutes of launch.

And in a chilling speech foreign minister Maxim Ryzhenkov warned that 'the world has once again returned to a point where the nuclear threat is clearly visible.

'The Doomsday Clock shows less than one and a half minutes to midnight, symbolising the moment of nuclear apocalypse.

'This is the closest the clock has ever been to midnight.'

The Doomsday Clock is an international symbol which aims at predicting how close the world is to a human-made global catastrophe such as nuclear war. It is currently set at 89 seconds to midnight.

Ryzhenkov blamed the West for rearming and claimed this posed a threat to Belarus, a state economically dependent on Putin where repression, torture and vote-rigging are routine.

In recent months NATO nations have pledged to up defence spending significantly in response to the threat posed by Putin and his allies.

In June, the British government announced plans to increase funding to five percent of GDP by 2035, following calls by NATO's Secretary General Mark Rutte.

But in his speech to the UN, Ryzhenkov boasted that Belarus now has weapons of 'monstrous destructive power'.

'The West has quietly begun to re-arm, and today they're even laying mines on our borders in Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia,' he said.

'Belarus was forced to deploy Russian tactical nuclear weapons to guarantee its security.

'Russian Oreshnik ballistic missiles will be deployed on Belarusian territory for the same purpose.

'The agreement on security guarantees… signed last year between Belarus and Russia provides for the use of any type of weapon, including nuclear weapons, for defence.'

Meanwhile his president laughed as he said he would soon have Oreshnik amid unexplained delays in its deployment in Belarus.

'It's on its way,' said dictator Lukashenko. 'Everything will be fine.'

A secret military base is being built near Pavlovka village, south of Minsk, to house the weapon close to NATO borders.

The construction site is the size of approximately 280 football pitches.

Putin claims targets would be incinerated by conventional Oreshnik missiles unleashing a temperature of 4,000C, almost as hot as the surface of the sun.

The weapon is also nuclear capable.

Putin has only used the 'game-changing' nuclear-capable weapon once - in a 'test' launch in November 2024 against Ukrainian city Dnipro, without a live warhead.

By moving it close to Belarus capital Minsk, it means Ukraine and the West could be hit far quicker than from launches deep inside Russia.

Belarus has Russian Iskander-M short-range nuclear missiles on its territory, a system Putin recently positioned close to the Polish border in Kaliningrad region.

Landlocked Belarus shares borders with three NATO states - Poland, Lithuania and Latvia - as well as Ukraine and Russia.

Amid the war of words, NATO flexed its muscles in the North Sea this week in a display of military might, as Russia allegedly tested the alliance's defences on its eastern flank.

F-18 fighter jets lined up on the world's largest aircraft carrier, flanked by 20 ships and with some 10,000 military personnel from 13 countries.

US destroyers and French and Danish frigates escorted the giant USS Gerald R. Ford on the high seas as part of NATO's Neptune Strike 25-3 exercise.

F-35 and F-18 jets flew overhead in a diamond formation behind an E-2 Hawkeye, in a demonstration of their capabilities and to test their coordination at a time of high tension with Moscow.

One day before the exercise, a Russian reconnaissance aircraft flew three times over the German frigate Hamburg at 'very low altitude' in the Baltic Sea on September 21, according to the German defence ministry.

'We consider this behaviour unprofessional and uncooperative,' said a ministry spokesperson.

The NATO exercise began the same day that, a few hundred kilometres away, 'three or four large drones' flew over Copenhagen Airport, disrupting air traffic.

These 'hybrid attacks' could increase, warned Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.

'We reassure our allies, and with our adversaries or others... we establish a strategic deterrent as a group, as a team,' said US Rear Admiral Paul Lanzilotta, commander of Carrier Strike Group Twelve, in the vast hangar of the carrier.

Source - Daily Mail