The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) castigated Vladimir Putin over his nuclear rhetoric a day after the Russian president said he planned to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, escalating a stand-off with the West.
Ukraine has called for a meeting of the United Nations Security Council in response to the plan, which is one of Russia's clearest signals since the start of its invasion of Ukraine 13 months ago.
Russia's rhetoric is dangerous and irresponsible, NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said on Sunday.
NATO is closely monitoring the situation and we are closely monitoring the situation. We have not seen any changes in Russia's nuclear posture that would lead us to adjust our own. Putin said on Saturday that Russia would not violate its nuclear non-proliferation promises, while he likened the move to the United States stationing its weapons in Europe.
While Washington, the world's other nuclear superpower, played down concerns about Putin's announcement, NATO said that the Russian president's non-proliferation pledge and his description of US weapons deployment overseas were way off the mark.
Russia is totally off topic from Russia's reference to NATO's nuclear sharing. Lungescu said in a statement that NATO allies in the United States act with full respect of their international commitments. Russia has broken its arms control commitments. Oleksiy Danilov, a top security adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Russia's plan would destabilise Belarus, which he said had been taken hostage by Moscow.
Lithuania said on Sunday it would call for new sanctions against Moscow and Minsk in response to Russia's plan.
Lithuania will ask for additional sanctions to be included in a package of penalties discussed in Brussels, according to the foreign ministry's spokesperson.
Experts said Russia's move was significant because it had until now been proud that unlike the United States, it did not deploy nuclear weapons outside its borders. It may be the first time since the mid- 1990s that it has done so.
Mykhailo Podolyak, another senior Zelenskyy adviser, scoffed at Putin's plan on Twitter.
He admits that he is afraid of losing all he can do is scare with tactics, according to Podolyak.
Tactical nuclear weapons refer to those used to make specific gains on a battlefield rather than those with the capacity to wipe out cities. It is not clear how many such weapons Russia has, given it is an area still shrouded in Cold War secrecy.
Ukraine's foreign ministry called for an extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council after Putin announced, and asked the international community to take decisive measures to prevent Russia's use of nuclear weapons.
Russia has confirmed its inability to be a responsible steward of nuclear weapons as a means of deterrence and prevention of war, not as a tool of threats and intimidation. The European Union urged Belarus not to host the weapons and threatening further sanctions after it was condemned by its foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Sunday.
The risk of nuclear war remains extremely low, according to analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War. Rep. Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the US House of Representatives foreign affairs committee, said he viewed Russia's plan as disturbing and designed to intimidate the West.
I think this is sabre-rattling on the part of Putin to try and frighten, McCaul told the Fox News Sunday programme.