According to Newton's third law "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, according to reports from the Tass agency, declared that i Iskander missiles, which can be armed with both nuclear and conventional warheads, have been transferred from Russia to the Belarus. The Russian minister also added that the Belarusian military has already begun training for the use of Russian missiles. This happened on the sidelines of the entrance to the Finland in the NATO alliance, which triggered the reaction of Moscow.
In fact, Russian President Vladimir Putin had already announced the transfer of Iskander missiles to Belarus and the start of construction of a site to store tactical nuclear warheads. Indeed, already last February the Belarusian forces had announced that the Iskanders were operating autonomously.
The reactions were not slow. While the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell emphatically expressed his disappointment, the Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg he dismissed Putin's nuclear threat as mere "rhetoric". And the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, returns to condemn the invasion of Ukraine.
Mattarella on the war: "Scenarios out of time and out of history"
"Scenarios that make us understand how out of time and history the behaviors of a power of the last century are, which lead to a war of aggression, to annex territories or to fierce competitions on marginal aspects". This was stated by the President of the Republic Mattarella speaking in Ferrara at the opening of the Unife academic year, the 632nd since its foundation. “These are the relevant aspects that will mark the future world. And the world is called to reflect on this – added Mattarella -. And the universities must be the vanguard in this reflection. Universities have this vocation, this role: to reflect in order to explore scenarios and indicate paths with which to deal with them. This is the world that young people face, this is the world that universities must help them interpret and govern".
Russian missiles in Belarus: the reactions of Stoltenberg and Borrell
"NATO remains a nuclear alliance," he specified Stoltenberg adding that so far there has been no change “in Russia's nuclear posture” that would require any change in the posture of the Atlantic Alliance.
"We remain vigilant - warned Stoltenberg - we monitor closely what they do and we will take the necessary steps to always ensure that we have a credible deterrence for all our allies: it is not a question of provoking conflicts, but of preserving the peace and preventing misunderstandings or calculations wrong in Moscow about how to protect our allies.”
"The new nuclear bet to deploy tactical weapons in Belarus is a new escalation that poses a direct threat to European security," he said instead. Borrell.
Iskander missiles: characteristics
l 9K720 Iskander are short-range hypersonic tactical ballistic missile systems manufactured by KBM Kolomna and officially adopted by the Russian Army in 2006. Designed to neutralize enemy defense systems, airfields and fortifications, the Iskander was designed to evade anti-missile defenses making sharp turns at hypersonic speeds. The Iskander-M Employs a solid propellant missile capable of evading anti-missile defences, with a range of 415 km achieved thanks to the use of a booster.
In flight, the 9M723K1 missile does not follow a purely ballistic trajectory, as it is capable of performing violent maneuvers in the terminal phase of flight and of releasing false targets or decoys. The Iskander missile never leaves the atmosphere as it follows a relatively flat trajectory.
