In a man-on-the-street interview, Belsat TV journalists have asked Minsk residents whether Belarusians should help Russians in Syria.
“I think any normal person would not want to go to war even if fighting is over and a country is going back to civilian life. But in view of the friendly relations between Belarus and Russia, I would be easy-going about Belarusians’ support of the Russian army if such a need arose,” a man says.
The majority of interviewees believe that Belarus should not send its troops to Syria.
“Our military must stay at home and train. They should not meddle. Everything may happen there. I don’t want them to return home in zinc coffins,” another respondent warned.
“To Syria? No! Let Russia face the music, together with terrorists and IS. None of our military should be in Syria,” another Minsker stressed.
On July 5, Alyaksandr Lavrentyev, Head of the Russian delegation at the Astana-based talks on the Syrian crisis, called on Belarus and other CIS countries to send troops to Syria for joint monitoring in de-escalation zones.
Later, spokesman for the Belarusian Foreign Ministry Dzmitry Mironchyk has told journalists that Belarus did not receive any formal proposal from the CIS to deploy peacekeepers in Syria.
When interviewed by the TV station ONT in May, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad urged Belarusians not to yield to ‘present-day Nazism in the form of Western occupation’.
