Russia ‘settles’ in Belarus, set to develop military bases in former Soviet republics
Russia will actively keep developing its military bases abroad, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said Tuesday.
“We keep developing our bases abroad: in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia. We are developing them rather actively,” Shoigu said at a meeting of the Public Council under the Defense Ministry.
He recalled that recently a Russian squadron went on combat duty in Belarus.
“We settled there and started combat duty and everything connected with training,” news agency TASS quoted Shoigu as saying.
Russia decided earlier this year to send 24 Su-27SM3 fighter jets to its airbase in Belarus’s Baranavichy in order to ‘provide inviolability of the airspace of the UnionState of Russia and Belarus’. The first four Russian planes appeared in Baranavichy airfield in December, 2013.
In addition, in 2016 Russia is due to establish an airbase in the Belarusian town of Babruysk and deploy Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jets there. Russian aircraft will be stationed at a military airfield, which is to be reconstructed.
