Lukashenko decided to do without Putin in the fight against NATO
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko instructed the Secretary of State of the Security Council and the Minister of Defense to develop in the very near future an action plan to adequately respond to the deployment in Lithuania, in close proximity to the border with Belarus, of armored vehicles and a contingent of US armed forces.
State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus Stanislav Zas told reporters about this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Any country is working on responses to such steps from neighboring countries... Does Lithuania need such additional tension between our friendly peoples, let them decide for themselves,” BelTA quotes Zasya.
The Pabrade training ground, 15 km from the border with Belarus, was chosen as the location for the unit of the American armored division.
In the spring of 2020, NATO is preparing to hold its largest military exercise there in the last 25 years. It is planned to work out issues of transferring troops from US territory to the European continent.
“In different ways: by sea, by air - using the seaports of European countries, airfields. And by land from those bases that have been created in Europe,” explained Stanislav Zas.
“There is obvious militarization of this region. This is the situation in which it is planned to conduct exercises,” he added.
Opposition observer Anton Shraibman believes that the Belarusian authorities are escalating the situation around the exercises in advance in order to prevent Russia from conducting alternative exercises on its territory.
“The gentlemen seem to have calculated the situation a couple of moves ahead. Six months before the NATO exercises, they decided to be the first to start talking about the response in order to seize the initiative and so that in a couple of months it would not start coming from Russia.
Minsk believes that if it sets the tone on this issue, then there is less chance that Moscow will offer answers that are uncomfortable for Belarus (a la unscheduled exercises on Belarusian territory, the deployment of some troops),” Shraibman wrote in his telegram -channel.
Earlier, Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei said that the deployment of a Russian air force base in Belarus “does not make sense” and will not contribute to stability in the region.
It should be noted that the Russian-Belarusian military exercises “Union Shield - 2019” this year were held at the training ground of the Western Military District of the Russian Armed Forces Mulino in the Nizhny Novgorod region, so as not to aggravate the situation in Europe.
On October 16, Minsk hosted an information day for the NATO Science for Peace and Security program, the opening of which was attended by a delegation of the North Atlantic Alliance led by NATO Deputy Secretary General for New Security Challenges Antonio Missiroli.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.