MOSCOW, 9 February (BelTA) – Preparations for the Allied Resolve exercise have been as transparent as possible, Belarus' Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Aleinik said in his address to the participants of the conference "Collective Security in a New Era: Experience and Prospects of the CSTO" organized by the Valdai International Discussion Club with the support of the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow on 9 February, BelTA has learned.
The address was read out by Belarus' Permanent and Plenipotentiary Representative to the CSTO Vyacheslav Remenchik.
Sergei Aleinik stated that NATO continues to build up forces at the western border of Belarus, to modernize the military infrastructure, and increase the intensity and scale of operational and combat training activities on the European continent. "Over the past year the number of NATO exercises has more than tripled," he said.
"Yet they accuse Belarus and our ally Russia of escalating the situation in the region. A recent example is the nervous reaction of the West, primarily Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states bordering us, to the Russian-Belarusian exercise Allied Resolve 2022 which will begin in Belarus on 10 February. Preparations for the exercise have been as transparent as possible, widely covered by the defense ministries of Belarus and Russia and the media of the two countries. Yet, they continue to use every joint Belarusian-Russian exercise to scare the European public, deliberately forgetting that after each exercise all troops return back to the points of permanent deployment in Belarus and Russia,” Sergei Aleinik noted.
"Who benefits from this provocative rhetoric aimed at fanning tensions and escalating the situation in the region? Those who want to use the ‘Russian threat' to obtain additional funds, primarily from the United States, for weapons and equipment, and to host new military bases on their territory. But will it strengthen their own security and European security in general? I think that's a rhetorical question. This is a zero-sum game,” Sergei Aleinik noted.
