“Counterweight to NATO”
Lukashenko wants to upgrade the Eastern Alliance
May 16, 2022, 5:15 p.m
While NATO is growing with Finland and Sweden, the eastern military alliance CSTO is meeting in Moscow. The Belarusian ruler Lukashenko is calling for a rearmament. However, he has so far largely kept his country out of Putin’s war against Ukraine.
Against the background of the war in Ukraine, Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko has called for a Russian-led military alliance to be strengthened as a counterweight to NATO. “The (Collective Security Treaty Organization) CSTO must massively consolidate its status in the international system of control and separation of powers,” Lukashenko said today, according to the Belarusian news agency Belta, at a meeting of the alliance in Moscow. Russia cannot fight NATO enlargement alone, he added. Lukashenko, who is often criticized as “Europe’s last dictator”, justified the Russian invasion of Ukraine with NATO’s rearmament in Eastern Europe and its activities in Ukraine.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin warned NATO against arming the prospective new members Sweden and Finland. Russia has no problem with the two countries, including with regard to their foreseeable NATO membership, Putin said at the CSTO meeting in Moscow. “But the expansion of military infrastructure in this area would certainly provoke a response from our side,” Putin said.
Belarus reinforces troops on Ukrainian border
Putin shows Lukashenko his place for the group photo: CSTO meeting in Moscow.
(Photo: IMAGO / ITAR-TASS)
In addition to Russia and Belarus, the CSTO also includes the ex-Soviet republics of Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The armies of other countries, including Belarus, have not yet joined the Russian war against Ukraine. However, the Russian attack was partly carried out from Belarusian territory. However, it was used as a starting point for Russian advances on Kyiv and Chernihiv as well as for air strikes. The West has therefore imposed sanctions not only on Moscow but also on Minsk. Only on Sunday did the Belarusian leadership put the damage from the sanctions at between 16 and 18 billion dollars.
According to estimates by British secret services, Belarus will probably tie up military forces from the neighboring country by stationing troops on the border with Ukraine. According to a report by the Ministry of Defense in London, Minsk wants to send special forces, air defence, artillery units and rocket launchers to training areas in the west of the country. This will “probably tie up Ukrainian troops so they cannot be deployed to support Donbass.”
Contrary to initial speculation, Belarusian troops are still not involved in combat operations, according to the report. Lukashenko weighs the balance between supporting Russia and avoiding direct military involvement. Such involvement could bring further Western sanctions, retaliatory strikes from Ukraine, and dissatisfaction within the country’s own military.