India, May 28 -- Belarus insisted on Thursday that the joint nuclear exercises it conducted with Russia this month break no international law, casting the maneuvers as the eastern mirror image of arrangements NATO has run for decades and as a strictly defensive measure rather than a provocation.

In a statement posted to its Telegram channel, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Sekreta had told reporters that the joint nuclear training with Russia fully complies with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The ministry described the activity as an analogue of what it called NATO's practice of joint nuclear missions, and said it was exclusively defensive in nature.

The ministry added that inf...