Counter measures to be taken - Russia defense minister demonizes Poland, NATO in Minsk
NATO’s military activity has reached unprecedented levels since the Cold War, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in Minsk on October, 24.
As reported earlier, Poland has been lobbying for a permanent US base amid concerns over Russian aggression. In September, Polish President Andrzej Duda and US President Donald Trump met in the White House. One of the key issues discussed was the location of a US military base in Poland.
“The plans of the Polish government to host a permanent U.S. military base in its territory are counterproductive and do not contribute to stability and national security. In this regard, we will have to take retaliatory measures and be ready to neutralize any possible military threat in all directions,” state-run news agency BelTA quotes the Russian minister.
According to him, NATO is trying to enlarge its footprint on the eastern flank. The scale of training at ‘our borders’ has been growing, and the alliance is being focused on offensive operations, he stressed.
The defense ministers of Russia and Belarus signed a plan for the Union Shield 2019 exercise. It will take place in Russia and will be ‘purely defensive’ in nature, Shoigu noted. His counterpart Andrey Raukou stressed that such events would help check the quality and level of combat readiness of the regional group of troops, to see the real capabilities of weapons and the ability to carry out combat tasks.
When reached by belsat.eu, Russian military analyst Alexander Golts made a comment over Shoigu’s statement:
“This is a classic case of a hypothetical threat resulting in the other party’s starting to take some response measures. In respect to Belarus, Russia has long had an itch to deploy at least an air base to Belarus, and Lukashenka promised toestablish such a base, but then he took his promise back.Now, when Russia got involved in a new cold war with the West, the Belarusian leader realized at once what too tight military cooperation with Russia might bring – in case of war, Russian military facilities in Belarus would become targets.”
As a rational politician, Alyaksandr Lukashenka would not let Moscow to put a military base in the territory of our country, Alexander Golts believes.
Union Shield is a large-scale Russia-Belarus military game. They were held three times (in 2006 in Belarus, in 2011 and 2015 in Russia). In 2015, more than 1,300 Belarusian soldiers were involved in the drills that took place in Pskov and Leningrad regions.
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