Poland says it wants to host US nuclear weapons

Poland has asked NATO to deploy nuclear weapons on its territory in response to the deployment of russian nuclear weapons in Belarus.

"Due to the fact that russia intends to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, we are asking the entire NATO to participate in a nuclear exchange program. The final decision will depend on our American partners. We declare our will to act quickly on this issue," said Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki after the EU summit in Brussels.

The nuclear exchange program allows for the provision of nuclear warheads to NATO member states that do not have nuclear weapons of their own.

Polish officials have spoken about their readiness to deploy nuclear weapons on their territory many times over the past few years, including before the war in Ukraine. Last year and this year, in particular, President Andrzej Duda and Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski spoke on this topic.

Last October, Poland already announced its desire to participate in Nuclear sharing. At that time, President Andrzej Duda said that he was in talks with the United States.

"The problem is, first of all, that we do not have nuclear weapons. Nothing indicates that Poland could have them in the near future," he complained in an interview with Gazeta Polska.

However, NATO and the United States have publicly stated that they do not plan to deploy nuclear weapons in the countries of the bloc, which were formed after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Bloomberg noted at the time.

In late May, moscow and Minsk agreed to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

In June, Lukashenko said that a significant part of russia's tactical nuclear weapons were already in Belarus.

"We have missiles and bombs. The bombs we received from russia are three times more powerful than Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Lukashenko said.