Let's hope that Chinese leader Xi Jinping will take this outrage as a personal insult and immediately arrange a serious conversation with his "

Just a few days ago, Xi Jinping visited Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss their cooperation, as well as dissuade him from nuclear escalation and push for a peace process with Kiev.. Over the weekend, Putin did exactly the opposite..

Perhaps in the most insidious of his many nuclear threats against Ukraine and the West, Putin announced that he would deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, a neighboring dictatorship and vassal state to its west.. From there, even short-range missiles and aircraft can hit targets in Ukraine or Central Europe..

Putin, as always, is cunning, claiming that this step will not violate Russia's obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. His logic is that he, and not Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, will retain control of the warheads and missiles that will carry them.. It seems to be all right.

In reality, Putin is once again ignoring – or perhaps relishing – the bitter irony of the treacherous path he has followed up to this point in history.. In the so-called 1994 Budapest Memorandum, both Ukraine and Belarus - as well as the third former Soviet republic that possessed nuclear weapons at the time, Kazakhstan - agreed to surrender their nuclear arsenals in exchange for security guarantees from Moscow.. Here are Russian security guarantees for you! Today, Putin declares that Ukraine is not a state at all, and it must be conquered or destroyed. And he views Belarus as a personal fiefdom, intended to be merged into the “Union State”, which, obviously, will be headed by Putin,” the newspaper writes..

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The lesson for tyrants and aggressors - from North Korea to Iran and beyond - is simple: only nuclear weapons can give them insurance.. Only nuclear weapons can offer them protection from nuclear blackmail by ruthless aggressors like Putin and serve as an extortion tool in their own arsenals..

“Yes, Putin has just begun a new era of nuclear proliferation,” the article says..

Its escalation is particularly odious as it echoes last month's suspension of START III, the only remaining arms control treaty that limits the strategic nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States..

As always, Putin is using the full repertoire of KGB techniques he learned early in his career, distorting the reality of creating narratives to be spread by Russians and “useful idiots” elsewhere.. He believes that sending nuclear weapons to Belarus is only a proportional response to British plans to provide Ukraine with shells made from depleted uranium.. But depleted uranium cannot cause fission, and projectiles containing it are not nuclear weapons..

Putin is also trying to link his plans in Belarus to the long-standing American practice of planting nuclear bombs in allied countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey.. But these arsenals - valuable as they were at the time - are leftovers from the Cold War.. Neither Washington nor any other nuclear-weapons-controlling capital would dream of placing such warheads closer to Russia in the current state of tension..

“Therefore, Ukraine is right when it convenes an immediate meeting of the UN Security Council. Russia takes a place in it. But there is room for China too, which should use its new influence with Putin to talk him out of this madness.. Better yet, Xi Jinping pick up the phone right now and remind Putin where their friendship ends,” the publication advises..

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Belarusians - including senior military leaders - should consider turning against their dictator again to prevent Putin from dragging them into disaster with him.

Ukraine and the West, meanwhile, shouldn't let Putin scare them hysterically.. The Russian president has become so unpredictable and reckless, so crazy in his view of the world and his own destiny in it, that only steely determination and calm strength can keep him from making a bad situation immeasurably worse..