MINSK, 15 February (BelTA) – Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov has called the West's speculations around the Belarus-Russia military drills paranoid, TASS reports.
“I commented earlier on the speculations alleging that the Russia-Belarus military drills were designed to attack Ukraine from the north, to capture Kiev. All these completely paranoid scenarios were published there many times, including by reputable mass media outlets, unfortunately. Apparently, the media followed in the footsteps of masterminds and screenwriters of all these actions,” the Russian foreign minister said.
Sergey Lavrov noted that the return of the Russian troops to their places of permanent deployment is proceeding in line with the schedule, irrespectively of the hysteria of the West over Russia's allegedly impending invasion of Ukraine.
“As for the exercises that Russia is conducting, I will emphasize once again that Russia is holding them on its own territory in accordance with its own schedule. These drills begin, proceed and end as planned. We have talked about this many times. This pertains to the exercises in the west of the country, in the Far East and the Russia-Belarus joint drills that are also proceeding strictly in accordance with a previously agreed schedule. This is done regardless of who thinks what, who goes hysterical about it, who resorted to sheer information terrorism. The caravan moves on,” the foreign minister said.
