Summary
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko confirmed the deployment of over a dozen Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus, integrating the country’s military with Russia under the Union State treaty.
Signed by Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin, the treaty allows joint use of Russian nuclear weapons, though Moscow retains control.
Putin’s updated nuclear doctrine lowers the threshold for nuclear use, even in response to conventional attacks.
Critics, including Belarusian opposition figures, denounce the treaty as undermining Belarus’s sovereignty, while Lukashenko has also requested advanced Russian missiles, escalating tensions with NATO and neighboring countries.
I only have a limited understanding of arms controls treaties. In those, at least, the nuclear warheads themselves aren’t tracked. What is tracked is called “seats”. These are delivery mechanisms for nuclear warheads. This includes things like aircraft (bombers), submarines, tactical and strategic missiles. Essentially, the logic says that it doesn’t matter how many warheads you have if you can’t get them to a target to threaten the target then they are not a threat to track. Only the ones you can get to your enemy count.
This mechanism was also used because military regularly remove warheads from active status for service, and swap them with warheads coming out of refreshes. Tracking the seats means not having to track regular maintenance.
So its entirely possible that Putin did send missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads (real seats), with or without the warheads. I agree with you that I’m not sure Putin trusts Lukashenko with real active warheads, but I could certainly see Putin shipping some tactical missiles that could carry a nuclear warhead.
By treaty no, by power, money and influence they are all known. Russia spends a huge amount of its defense budget on simply tracking them and we do the same.