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Updated January 2008
Belarus: Nuclear Chronology
1991-1995
This annotated chronology is based on the data sources that follow each entry. Public sources often provide conflicting information on classified military programs. In some cases we are unable to resolve these discrepancies, in others we have deliberately refrained from doing so to highlight the potential influence of false or misleading information as it appeared over time. In many cases, we are unable to independently verify claims. Hence in reviewing this chronology, readers should take into account the credibility of the sources employed here.
Inclusion in this chronology does not necessarily indicate that a particular development is of direct or indirect proliferation significance. Some entries provide international or domestic context for technological development and national policymaking. Moreover, some entries may refer to developments with positive consequences for nonproliferation.
When Belarus gained independence in December 1991, there were 81 road-mobile SS-25s on its territory stationed at three missile bases, and an unknown number of tactical nuclear weapons. During the 1980s, a number of units equipped with intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) were also stationed in the Belarusian SSR; however, all of these weapons were eliminated under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty by 1991.
In May 1992, Belarus signed the Lisbon Protocol, which obligated it to accede to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear weapon state, which it did in July 1993, and to ratify the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which it ratified in February 1993. As a result of these commitments, Belarus transferred its nuclear weapons to Russia. The process of transferring tactical warheads was completed in May 1992, and the last strategic warheads and associated missiles were sent to Russia in November 1996. No nuclear forces have been stationed in Belarus since then, although the possibility of stationing Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus was broached by a number of Belarusian officials in the late 1990s.
The government of Belarus has considered construction of a nuclear power plant since 2005. For more information, see updates in Belarus Nuclear Chronology 2001-2007.
This
material is produced independently for NTI by the James Martin Center for
Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and
does not necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been independently
verified by NTI or its directors, officers, employees, agents. Copyright © 2008
by MIIS.
