A top security adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus would destabilise that country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the decision on Saturday, sending a warning to NATO over its military support for Ukraine and escalating a stand-off with the West.

Although the move was not unexpected and Mr Putin said it would not violate nuclear non-proliferation promises, it is one of Russia’s most pronounced nuclear signals since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine 13 months ago.

Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, called it “a step towards internal destabilisation of the country”, adding it maximises what he called the level of “negative perception and public rejection” of Russia and Putin in Belarusian society.

“The (K)remlin took Belarus as a nuclear hostage,” he wrote on Twitter.

Mr Putin likened his plans to the US stationing its weapons in Europe, and said Russia would not be transferring control of the weapons to Belarus.

“We are not handing over (the weapons). And the US does not hand (them) over to its allies. We’re basically doing the same thing they’ve been doing for a decade,” Mr Putin said.

However, this could be the first time since the mid-1990s that Russia has based such weapons outside the country.

Experts said the development was significant, since Russia had until now been proud that unlike the United States, it did not deploy nuclear weapons outside its borders.

Another senior Zelenskyy adviser on Sunday scoffed at Mr Putin’s plan, saying the Russian leader is “too predictable”.

“Making a statement about tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, he admits that he is afraid of losing & all he can do is scare with tactics,” Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted.

Washington has played down concerns about Mr Putin’s announcement and the potential for Moscow to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine.

“We have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture nor any indications Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon. We remain committed to the collective defence of the NATO alliance,” a senior US administration official said.

The official noted Russia and Belarus had been speaking about the transfer of nuclear weapons for some time.

Analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in a note late on Saturday that the risk of escalation to nuclear war “remains extremely low”.

“ISW continues to assess that Putin is a risk-averse actor who repeatedly threatens to use nuclear weapons without any intention of following through in order to break Western resolve,” it wrote.

However, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons called Putin’s announcement an extremely dangerous escalation.

“Sharing nuclear weapons makes the situation much worse and risks catastrophic humanitarian consequences,” it said on Twitter.

Putin decries a western ‘axis’

Mr Putin said Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko had long requested the deployment. There was no immediate reaction from Mr Lukashenko.

While the Belarusian army has not formally fought in Ukraine, Minsk and Moscow have a close military relationship. Minsk allowed Moscow to use Belarusian territory to send troops into Ukraine last year and the two nations stepped up joint military training.

Mr Putin on Sunday also denied Moscow was creating a military alliance with Beijing and instead asserted that Western powers are building a new “axis” similar to the partnership between Germany and Japan during World War Two.