The noose is tightening around Ukraine, threatened by a potential new front, with the risk of finding itself surrounded by the Russians. This time the danger comes from Belarus, which Moscow could use to launch an attack against it. Weakened and isolated on the international scene since his fraudulent re-election in August 2020 and the fierce repression of the protest movement, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko finds himself more dependent than ever on Vladimir Putin, his ally, to whom he owes his political survival. . An enslavement that the Russian president intends to take advantage of in the showdown between him and the Americans and the Europeans over Ukraine, where some 100,000 Russian troops are stationed at the borders, raising fears of an invasion.
Russia and Belarus thus announced, on Tuesday 18 January, the organization of joint military exercises “impromptu”aiming to “repel an external aggression”. The maneuvers are taking place in two stages: the first, already underway, involves deployments to the “endangered areas”, infrastructure security and airspace protection. The exercises themselves, dubbed Union Determination 2022, will take place in the second phase, from February 10-20.
Minsk justifies these maneuvers by “the worsening of the politico-military situation in the world, and the continuous increase of tensions in Europe, in particular on the western and southern borders of Belarus”. Twelve Su-35 aircraft, two divisions of S-400 air defense systems and one division of Pantsir-S surface-to-air missile systems are on their way. It is unclear, however, how many forces and equipment will be deployed in total.
Ukrainian distrust
These military exercises “go way beyond normal”alarmed a senior official of the US State Department on Tuesday, fearing that it was only a pretext for “potentially attacking Ukraine”. The United States is also concerned about the timing of these maneuvers, which come just before the February 27 holding of a constitutional referendum in Belarus aimed at strengthening the powers of President Lukashenko.
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“These constitutional changes could indicate that Belarus plans to allow nuclear and conventional forces to be stationed on its territory”, said the senior official. In the amended version of the text, the obligation for Belarus to remain a “nuclear-free zone” has also disappeared. This article would be replaced by another, “excluding military aggression from the territory” Belarusian.
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