Russia’s armed forces have announced that they have trained soldiers from ally Belarus in the use of tactical nuclear missiles ahead of their planned deployment to the neighboring country.

Belarusian soldiers have demonstrated good results, the Russian Defense Ministry announced today.

The ministry also released a video it claims shows training at a training center in southern Belarus. An Iskander-M missile system can be seen in the video. The missiles can carry both conventional warheads as well as nuclear warheads.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended the deployment of nuclear missiles in Belarus in response to the expansion of NATO, which recently admitted Finland as the 31st member of the military alliance.

According to Russian Defense Ministry sources, weapons training has started since April 3, based on Putin’s announcement. Belarusian soldiers studied in detail the issues of storage and use of explosive devices for missiles. A missile was also test-fired, as seen in the video.