MINSK, 9 September (BelTA) - The Armed Forces of Ukraine keep 14,000 military near the borders of Belarus, State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus Aleksandr Volfovich said in an interview to ONT TV channel, BelTA has learned.
“The decision timely made and reported to the president to strengthen the southern operational direction was absolutely justified. Diverse force groupings and means were deployed to the southern regions of our country to cover the Gomel and Mozyr operational directions in order to strengthen the border service bodies. All the recent statements and reproaches from the West and Ukraine that we have set up some groupings to launch an offensive in the south of Ukraine can only make everybody smile,” Aleksandr Volfovich said.
According to him, the Belarusian force grouping near the Ukrainian border is many times smaller than the grouping stationed on the territory of neighboring Ukraine. “There is a 14,000-strong grouping of armed forces and other paramilitary structures of Ukraine near our border,” the state secretary said. “Belarus has never expressed any reproaches, threats, any claims of territorial or any other nature towards Ukraine. We have always lived in peace, friendship and harmony.”
