Belarus announced this Sunday the extension of military exercises with Russia due to tensions with neighboring Ukraine and the worsening of fighting between the Ukrainian Army and Russian-speaking separatists in a border area with Russian territory.
The decision to continue the exercises, which began ten days ago and was to end this Sunday, was made by the presidents of Belarus and Russia, Alexandr Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin, the Belarusian defense minister said in a statement.
The United States and NATO suspect that Russia could use troops deployed in Belarus to invade Ukraine.
The Kremlin has been saying for weeks that it has no intention of entering that country and instead accuses NATO of threatening its security by expanding into Eastern Europe.
In 2014, Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and politically supported Russian-speaking separatist militias in eastern Ukraine.
More than 14,000 people have been killed in fighting in that part of Ukraine, which is known as Donbass and where the militias control two provinces bordering Russia.
Fears of a war between Russia and Ukraine have increased in the last two days due to an increase in hostilities between the Ukrainian army and the militias.
Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said the exercises with Russia would be prolonged due to “increased military activity near the external borders” of both countries. and to the “aggravation of the situation in Donbass”, the DPA news agency reported.
On Saturday, Putin and Lukashenko together supervised a series of ballistic exercises involving hypersonic missiles, intercontinental missiles and tests from nuclear submarines in what they described as a “strategic deterrence forces exercise”.
The Kremlin recalled that the exercises were “planned in advance”, before the current crisis with Ukraine.
