Ukrainian diplomat Roman Bezsmertnyi shared his opinions with Espreso TV."An important issue that is hardly discussed now is all those talks about the possibility of placing nuclear weapons in Belarus. Do you remember how much they used to talk about it? Now Lukashenko has stopped talking about it. In fact, everything that happened in this case happened precisely because the United States, as one of the key states that possess nuclear weapons, as members of the nuclear club, take care to implement the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. And that is why, in this regard, they entered into dialogue with the Belarusian dictator, explaining to him that deploying tactical or strategic nuclear weapons, or anything equivalent, on the territory of Belarus is absolutely unacceptable," he stated.The diplomat added that it is clear that during this process, Lukashenko began bargaining with political prisoners as a leverage.“At first, they released 14 or 15, and now 52 were released in exchange for the supposed lifting of U.S. sanctions on Belavia. It’s clear that in this situation, Lukashenko is playing a game. The idea that the U.S. could somehow separate Lukashenko from Putin is just a continuation of the utterly pointless attempt to drive a wedge between Putin and Xi Jinping. That’s impossible; it won’t happen. However, one issue is actually being resolved. Not only have the talks stopped, but the processes have as well. And at this time, absolutely no one can say for certain where and what kind of weapons exist,” Bezsmertnyi noted.In his view, there are no nuclear weapons or Oreshnik ballistic missiles on the territory of Belarus.“And all the talks about this issue being addressed during the exercises concern strategic command-and-staff exercises, within which the question of using nuclear weapons or Oreshnik would theoretically be considered in so-called command-and-staff games. This is exactly what is happening these days, to which no one will be allowed — neither American observers nor Hungarian nor even Indian, who are present there. It is part of the closed section of these exercises,” the former ambassador emphasized.He added that, in this regard, it is clear that there will be progress and some cooperation between Washington and Minsk.“To understand what Belavia represents in this situation, it will not just be a gap in sanctions against the Kremlin — it will be a huge gap in sanctions against Russia. On one hand, Donald Trump says that Europeans should do something about sanctions, while at the same time, by lifting sanctions, he creates a loophole. This is because we need to understand that under the flag of Belavia, Russia’s civil aviation will now develop, recover, purchase spare parts, and so on,” the diplomat said.Bezsmertnyi emphasized that, in reality, Belavia’s scale today is negligible.“It is 13 aircraft capable of operating international flights. Clearly, this is a huge economic step for Lukashenko. From a scale perspective, it’s insignificant, yet it represents a major loophole in the sanctions policies of both the United States and Europe regarding Belarus and Russia, since, as is known, legislation operates within the framework of the Union State of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. This is the situation surrounding the so-called cooperation between Donald Trump and Lukashenko. Its productivity is absolutely nil. However, from the standpoint that the United States must somehow prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, they had to enter into this dialogue,” he concluded.On September 11, U.S. envoy John Coale arrived in Minsk with a delegation and met with Belarus’s self-declared president Alexander Lukashenko, announcing that Washington would lift sanctions on the airline Belavia.On Monday, September 15, American military officers observed joint military exercises between Russia and Belarus. Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin told them that they could review “anything they are interested in.”