Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarus’ Alyaksandar Lukashenka have agreed to deploy a joint regional group of forces, Belarusian state news agency BelTA reports.
“Given the worsening of the situation on the western borders of the Union State, we agreed to deploy a regional group of forces of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. This complies with our documents,” Lukashenka said during a meeting on security matters.
“It says that if the threat level reaches the level as it is now, we begin to use the Union State group of forces.
The basis of this group is the army, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus. I must inform you that the formation of this group has begun. It’s been going on for, I think, two days. I gave an order to start forming this group,” Lukashenka stated.
Russia has not commented on this information so far.
Lukashenka also stated that Ukraine allegedly plans to strike Belarus and that the Ukrainian army had begun establishing a second front on the Belarusian border. “I have already said that today Ukraine is not just contemplating, but planning strikes on the territory of Belarus. Of course, the Ukrainians absolutely do not need this. Well, why would they need to open a second front on our southern border which is their northern border? This is madness from the point of view of the military,” he said.
On 9 October, Ukrainian Ambassador to Belarus Ihor Kyzym was summoned by the Belarusian Foreign Ministry and handed a diplomatic note that stated that Ukraine was planning an attack on Belarus. Ukraine denies these accusations.
