On Tuesday, December 29, Russian President Vladimir Putin and illegitimate Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko agreed to hold joint military exercises on the territory of the Belarus Republic in 2022. This is reported by Belta.
Putin and Lukashenko met for bilateral negotiations in St. Petersburg after the CIS events held the day before.
Lukashenko complained that Belarus is still being strangled due to five sanction packages imposed and the sixth is on the way and thanked Putin for constant readiness pf the Russian Federation to respond and support Belarus in these challenging times of sanctions.
As a result, they agreed to continue their fruitful cooperation, including the defense sphere.
“I have been asking you for a long time not to stop our cooperation on the military and defense sectors and the defense industry and move beyond them. You have always supported me in this regard. I asked you not to stop our joint exercises, while also creating training centers for teaching our military to use the latest military equipment we buy from Russia. We are doing this, so the exercises must also carry on,” Lukashenko said.
Belarusian President once again proposed to hold military exercises on the Belarusian territory, appealing that this would benefit Belarus-Russia relations. Putin agreed.
“As you suggested, we will hold exercises at the beginning of the year. The military command will coordinate the dates – in March or February – I don’t know when they will decide,” Russian President stated, During this period, according to intelligence, Russian troops are planning to invade the territory of Ukraine.