Meeting to discuss Belarus’ defense issues

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko convened a meeting on 1 December to discuss the country's defense issues.

“Today we will discuss the military and political situation around our country and measures of further response to it,” said Aleksandr Lukashenko.

According to the President, all law enforcement agencies have noted an increase in the number of provocations near the state border. “Ukraine is using any pretext to draw the troops of the NATO member states into the conflict. The recent missile incident in Poland testifies to the fact,” the head of state said.

“At the same time, we hear more calls from our self-exiled opposition to seize power by force and commit terrorist acts. Some of them are not just traitors, but extremists. There is no other name for them. They do not hesitate to call for strikes targeting the infrastructure of our country. They have even forgotten that their relatives live in Belarus,” said Aleksandr Lukashenko.

Against this background, Western states continue to build up the military potential of their armed forces, modernize infrastructure in the neighboring countries, and increase the intensity of operational and combat training activities, the President said. “All this leads to the aggravation of the already complicated military and political situation around our country and in the region in general,” he said.

“So far we have managed to restrain the possible enemy from using military force against Belarus. Nevertheless, we must constantly monitor, see and by no means miss the signs that would indicate the direct preparation for aggression against our country. Today we need to take a look at what has already been done to protect the state, and to identify the direction in which we need to move further,” said Aleksandr Lukashenko. “I have always repeated and I would like to say it again that our most important task is to draw lessons from what is happening along the perimeter of Belarus.”

The participants of the meeting are also set to assess the effectiveness of measures taken to improve the defense capabilities of the state and determine the need for additional decisions at the Presidential level.