Moscow: Russia and Belarus will hold joint military training in February, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday, in the midst of soaring tensions between East and West Ukrainians.
Russia, a close ally of Belarus, has worried the West and Kyiv with a buildup of troops near the border of Ukraine and a series of threatening rhetoric, stirring worries that he plans to attack.
Moscow denied such plans, but had used deadlock to campaigning for security guarantees from the West, including the termination of the expansion of NATO and formal veto in Ukraine, the former Soviet Republic, who had joined the military alliance.
“We plan to start training in February.
Set the exact date and let us know, so we were not blamed for making it easier for some troops here, as if we were preparing to fight,” said Lukashenko to his defense.
minister.
Belarusian leaders, PARARA in the West since take on protest in 2020 and the migrant crisis with the European Union, said the exercise would be held on the South and West Border Belarus.
The former Soviet Republic of 9.5 million, which Moscow saw as a buffer country to the west, the border of Ukraine to South members and NATO Poland and Lithuania to the west.
Normal Lukashenko practice, which has grown closer to the Kremlin when West expelled him, accusing Ukraine to build troops near Belarus in comments circulated by the Ministry of Defense.
He said Poland and Baltic had more than 30,000 soldiers near the Belarus border.
“This must be a normal exercise to overcome certain plans in confrontation with these forces: West (Baltic and Poland) and South (Ukraine),” Beltata news agency quoted it.
The Kremlin said separately that reported that Estonia was ready to accommodate up to 5,000 NATO troops showed Moscow was right to worry.
“This is exactly as proved that we have a reason to worry and it proves that we are not a reason to increase tension,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
He was asked on a conference call to comment after a senior Russian official refused to put aside or confirm whether Russia could use missiles in Venezuela or Cuba if the West refused to provide Moscow security guarantees.
“For Latin America – we talk about the sovereign country there, don’t forget it.
And in the context of the current situation, Russia thinks how to ensure its own security.
We are reviewing different scenarios,” he said.