Self-proclaimed Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said his country has started taking delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons, some of which he said were three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

According to Reuters, the deployment is Moscow's first move of such warheads – shorter-range less powerful nuclear weapons that could potentially be used on the battlefield – outside Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.

"We have missiles and bombs that we have received from Russia," Lukashenko said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 Russian state TV channel.

"The bombs are three times more powerful than those (dropped on) Hiroshima and Nagasaki," he declared.

Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on Friday that Russia, which will retain control of the tactical nuclear weapons, would start deploying them in Belarus after special storage facilities to house them were made ready.

Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, told Russian state TV in the interview, which was released late on Tuesday, that his country had numerous nuclear storage facilities left over from the Soviet-era and had restored five or six of them.

He played down the idea that Russian control of the weapons was an impediment to using them quickly if he felt such a move was necessary, saying he and Putin could pick up the phone to each other "at any moment".

Earlier on Tuesday, he had said separately that the Russian tactical nuclear weapons would be physically deployed on the territory of Belarus "in several days" and that he had the facilities to host longer-range missiles too if ever needed.

Lukashenko, who has allowed his country to be used by Russian forces attacking Ukraine as part of what Moscow calls its "special military operation", says the nuclear deployment will act as a deterrent against potential aggressors.

Previously, Alexander Lukashenko stated that the placement of Russian tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory was his demand to the Russian Federation.

On May 25, the defence ministers of Russia and Belarus signed documents on the placement of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. On the same day, Lukashenko announced that Russian nuclear weapons had already begun to be delivered to Belarus.