The United States has not seen any indication that Russia has yet moved nuclear weapons to its neighbour Belarus, national security council spokesman John Kirby said.

“We have not seen any indication that he (Russian President Vladimir Putin) has made good on this pledge or moved any nuclear weapons around,” Kirby said.

Meanwhile, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell cautioned Belarus against hosting the weapons, warning the move may trigger additional sanctions.

In a tweet, Borrell said: “#Belarus hosting Russian nuclear weapons would mean an irresponsible escalation and threat to European security.”

“Belarus can still stop it; it is their choice,” he added. “The EU stands ready to respond with further sanctions.”

On Saturday, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced an agreement reached with Belarus will see Moscow station tactical nuclear weapons on its neighbour’s territory.

In a statement, Kyiv’s foreign ministry described it as “another provocative step” by Moscow that undermines “the international security system as a whole”.

The ministry said: “Russia once again confirms its chronic inability to be a responsible steward of nuclear weapons as a means of deterrence and prevention of war, not as a tool of threats and intimidation.”

It demanded a UN Security Council session and called on the Group of Seven countries and the European Union to warn Belarus of “far-reaching consequences” if it accepts the Russian weapons.

The Ukrainian statement added: “Ukraine calls on all members of the international community to convey to the criminal (Putin) regime the categorical unacceptability of its next nuclear provocations and to take decisive measures to effectively deter and prevent any possibility of the aggressor state’s use of nuclear weapons.”

OTHER NEWS

• Three people were reported injured following an explosion in the town of Kireyevsk in Russia, which law enforcement attributed to a Ukrainian drone. “A Ukrainian Tu-141 Strizh UAV was the cause of an explosion in the town of Kireyevsk,” the Tass news agency reported. “The drone was packed with explosives.” None of the people hurt in the blast are believed to have suffered life-threatening injuries, Reuters reported, citing Russian news agencies.

• Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak has accused Vladimir Putin of violating the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and resorting to “scare” tactics.

• The UK Ministry of Defence says that since the start of March, Russia is likely to have launched at least 71 Iranian-designed Shahed series one-way attack uncrewed aerial vehicle (OWA-UAVS) against targets across Ukraine. It says Russia is likely launching Shaheds from two axes: from Russia’s Krasnodar Krai in the east and from Bryansk Oblast in the north-east.

• Ukraine’s deputy minister of defence Hanna Maliar went on Facebook to urge Ukrainians to not openly discuss details about the country’s upcoming offensive. “On live broadcasts, don’t ask experts questions [in the vein of] ‘how is the counter-offensive going?’, don’t write blogs or posts on this topic, and don’t discuss military plans of our army publicly at all. We have one strategic plan – to liberate all our territories. And as for the details – that’s simply a military secret,” Maliar wrote.

• The head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency will visit Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to assess the serious security situation there, the IAEA said. Rafael Grossi said in a statement that the safety and security dangers at the Russian-held plant were “all too obvious”.

• The top commander of Ukraine’s military has said that his forces are pushing back against Russian troops in the long and grinding battle for the town of Bakhmut. Separately, Britain’s defence ministry said the months-long Russian assault on the city had stalled, mainly as a result of heavy troop losses. British military intelligence also said Russia appeared to be moving to a defensive strategy in eastern Ukraine, Associated Press reported.

 Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke by phone with Putin and thanked him for his “positive attitude” in extending the Black Sea grain deal, the Turkish presidency said. It said the two leaders discussed steps to improve Turkish-Russian relations, and developments regarding the war in Ukraine, and that Erdoğan expressed the importance of ending the conflict through negotiations as soon as possible.