Putin announces deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus next month.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia will deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus after special storage facilities are ready on July 7-8, marking Moscow's first move of such bombs outside Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. Putin claims that the United States and its Western allies are pumping arms into Ukraine as part of an expanding proxy war aimed at bringing Russia to its knees. The move is being watched closely by both the United States and its NATO allies in Europe and by China, which has repeatedly cautioned against the use of nuclear weapons in the conflict.