Russia and Belarus can create a common army – Belkovsky
The decision to create joint armed forces may be made following the visit of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to Moscow scheduled for September.
Russian liberal political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky wrote about this in his Telegram channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“During the next visit of Alexander Lukashenko to Moscow, the creation of the Armed Forces of the Union State of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus may be discussed. Which will really save the Russian Federation from the need to formalize a military base on the territory of Belarus. We’ll see,” Belkovsky wrote.
Let us note that military contacts between Russia and Belarus have indeed intensified in recent days. So, on Tuesday, a telephone conversation took place between the chiefs of the general staffs of the two countries, Valery Gerasimov and Alexander Volfovich. The Ministry of Defense of Belarus reports that the parties discussed preparations for the joint Belarusian-Russian-Serbian exercise “Slavic Brotherhood-2020” and the strategic command and staff exercise “Caucasus-2020”.
The defense ministers of the two countries will meet on September 4 in Kubinka near Moscow as part of a meeting of the CIS countries.
At the same time, the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin is not discussing the deployment of a military base in Belarus.
Let us recall that back in 2015, Vladimir Putin ordered the signing of an agreement on the creation of an air force base in Belarus in response to the construction of new NATO military infrastructure near the Russian borders. However, Alexander Lukashenko refused to do this and even assured NATO experts in 2018 that this was a “far-fetched question.”
As a result, Belarus had to buy 12 Russian Su-30SM fighters, which have no competitors in any European army. Alexander Lukashenko criticized the Russian leadership for selling Su-30 fighters to Belarus rather than donating them. However, as it turned out, the combat vehicles cost Belarus almost 3 times less than the actual export price.
Two Russian military facilities are based in Belarus: the missile attack warning system center in Baranovichi (474th ORTU, Volga radar) and the Vileika radio station (43rd communications center of the Russian Navy).
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