The fate of military facilities: Will Lukashenko start “trading friendship with Russians”

The Belarusian authorities will not risk terminating the agreement on the operation of two Russian military facilities, but will try to use the period before the contract is extended to blackmail the Kremlin.

Reserve Colonel Vladimir Trukhan, a member of the working group on the creation of a Russian regional grouping of troops (forces) in Belarus, stated this on the PolitWera YouTube channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

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“Conversations are ongoing. There is now a growing theme in Belarus: we do not need a Russian military presence. Like, “if anything happens, they’ll hit us,” Trukhan recalled.

The expert believes that Russian military facilities, on the contrary, guarantee security for Belarus. “These objects are useful to you, because if they are there, ours will cover them. On the contrary, this is a guarantee of non-aggression on your territory, which is sovereign in all lands,” Trukhan said.

He recalled that in 1995, when an agreement was concluded on the deployment of Russian military facilities in Belarus, its energy debt was written off.

“Under this agreement, Belarus receives a lot of information critical for defense. She receives all information on air and outer space. All the information that we collect about the Globe using over-the-horizon radars, space tracking systems, and so on, is provided to Belarus free of charge. They simply won’t have it,” Trukhan said.

In addition, the expert recalled, after the conclusion of the agreement, the Belarusian military received the opportunity to use Russian training grounds for free.

“Where will they teach their anti-aircraft gunners to shoot? A training ground where anti-aircraft missile forces can be trained is a rather complicated thing. It's very big. There is nowhere to place it on the territory of Belarus. And people need to be trained constantly, taking into account the fact that Belarus has a conscript army. You won't fight much with imitators. We need firing ranges,” Trukhan said.

Russian liberal political strategist Stanislav Belkovsky claimed back in February that Alexander Lukashenko coordinated his plans to blackmail Russia with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during his visit to Minsk.

“When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Minsk on February 1, naturally Alexander Grigorievich did not fail to discuss with him the issue of the possible closure of the Russian Volga radar station. This is a vital part of the Russian missile attack warning system. I think that Lukashenko will not close the Volga station, but he can scare Russia with this matter. The 1995 agreement has outlived its usefulness, and you can fantasize as much as you like,” Belkovsky said.

Here it is worth recalling the statements of Alexander Lukashenko, made back in 1996, that the United States promised him $10 billion for the destruction of one of the facilities.

“Just for the destruction of the Gantsivech station, which Russia is building in the Brest region, Belarus was promised 10 billion dollars. My statement was immediate and unequivocal: I do not trade friendship with Russians,” the Belarusian president said then.

Agreements between the governments of Russia and Belarus on the use of the 43rd communications center of the Russian Navy “Vileika” and the Volga radar, located just north of Gantsevichi, were concluded in 1995 and ratified in 1996. The tenure of these facilities ends in 2021, and the agreements must be renegotiated no later than May 2020.

Both objects do not have the status of a military base and are guarded by Belarusian military personnel (or paramilitary guards). At the first, the maximum number of personnel is 1200 people (including civilians), at the second - 250.

The ultra-long-wave radio station in Vileika is used to provide communications in the North Atlantic and the North Sea, to communicate with deeply submerged submarines and surface ships, and to transmit combat control signals for the use of forces and equipment.

The long-range detection station for missile launches (Separate Radio Engineering Unit, ORTU) in the town of Gantsevichi (Brest Region) performs tasks to detect ballistic missiles, space objects and control over patrol areas of NATO submarines in the North Atlantic and the Norwegian Sea.