The Telegraph
Vladimir Putin has announced that Russian tactical nuclear weapons will be stationed in Belarus. This new sabre-rattling was clearly intended to intimidate the West, and the free states of eastern Europe in particular; once deployed, these weapons systems would threaten a swathe of the continent from the Baltic States in the north, to Romania and Moldova in the south east. But there is also another motivation behind the decision. As even his old allies lose faith in the Kremlin’s power, Putin is