MOSCOW, 25 January (BelTA) – The redeployment of Russian air defense missile systems S-400 to Belarus for an army exercise has been prompted by more frequent border patrol flights of NATO aircraft, BelTA learned from the former secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Chairman of the Coordinating Council of the Eurasian Information and Analysis Consortium Nikolai Bordyuzha at a press conference on 25 January.
Asked whether Belarus needs to buy cutting-edge air defense missile systems, Nikolai Bordyuzha noted that a number of S-400 air defense missile systems had been redeployed from Russia to Belarus as part of the Belarusian-Russian army exercise Allied Resolve 2022. The move was prompted by a drastic increase in patrol flights near the Belarusian border and in the number of NATO aircraft, which are located in the direct proximity of the Belarusian border. “It is my personal opinion that Belarus needs modern air defenses on the western borders. It will also be a factor of stability and security of the state,” Nikolai Bordyuzha said.
In turn, the former state secretary of the Union State of Belarus and Russia, a member of the International Affairs Committee of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Grigory Rapota added that selling this kind of weaponry to Belarus is not a technical matter, but a political one. “If the heads of state of both Russia and Belarus conclude that such a need has arisen, then certainly it will be done,” he is convinced.
