Belarus announces Russian military is to arrive any day
OLENA ROSHCHINA – FRIDAY, 14 OCTOBER 2022, 18:29
The Ministry of Defence of Belarus has announced that Russian troops that are supposed to become part of the joint grouping will arrive in Belarus in the coming days.
Source: BelTa [Belarus-aligned news outlet], citing the Ministry of Defence of Belarus and Colonel Viktor Tumar, the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Belarusian Armed Forces for scientific work.
Quote from Tumar: "Currently, the decision to create a regional grouping of troops is implemented so as to strengthen the protection and defence of the state border of the Republic of Belarus, in order to reduce military activity in the border areas with us [i.e., Belarus].
In the next few days, the troops of the Russian part of the Regional Group of Forces will begin to arrive on the territory of the Republic of Belarus.
Planned measures of combat training will be carried out with them [Russian troops], aimed at increasing the level of performance of tasks for the defence of the Union State [an organisation aiming to deepen the relationship between Russia and Belarus through integration in economic and defence policy – ed.]."
Details: At the same time, the number of the arriving Russian troops was not specified.
On 14 October, Alexander Lukashenko, the self-proclaimed president of Belarus, made it clear that the Belarusians would become the core of the joint regional grouping of Russian and Belarusian troops, and there would not be even 10,000-15,000 Russians in the joint grouping.
"You know our army: it is an estimated 70,000 people. This is the core. Well, I think that there is no need to demand 10-15,000 more from Russia now, there are enough other problems there. You know what they are. Therefore, we will rely on that at the moment. We're training the guys."
Background:
On 10 October, Alexander Lukashenko announced that the Russian Federation and Belarus had agreed on the deployment of a joint regional grouping of troops, and "over a thousand" Russian troops are supposed to arrive in the country.
On 11 October, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, said that Russia is trying to drag Belarus into a war, and as a pretext for this, some kind of provocation with an alleged attack of Ukraine on Belarus may be organised.
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