Moscow, Russia - The Russian armed forces say they have trained soldiers from Belarus on tactical nuclear missiles before the planned deployment of them in the neighboring country.

They had shown good results, the Defense Ministry in Moscow announced on Wednesday.

The ministry also published a video purporting to show the training on a Russian military training ground in the south of Belarus. A missile complex of the type Iskander-M could be seen in the video. The missiles can be equipped with conventional, but also with nuclear warheads.

Russian President Vladimir Putin defended its stationing of nuclear missiles in Belarus as a response to the expansion of NATO, which recently accepted Finland as the 31st member of the military alliance.

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According to Russian ministry sources, training on the weapons has been under way since April 3, in line with Putin's announcement. The Belarusian soldiers had studied in detail the storage and use of the tactical explosive devices for the missiles.

There was also a test launch of a missile, as seen on the video.