Articles: Russia and Ukraine Conflict
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Belarus to offer Russia to deploy extra warplanes as NATO active near borders
Published time: March 12, 2014 19:16
Belarus will request Russia to deploy up to 15 extra warplanes on its territory, as NATO is building up military presence in proximity to the Belarusian borders, President Aleksandr Lukashenko announced.
Speaking at a session of the country’s Security Council, he also vowed “a reasonable response” to NATO’s strengthening contingent near Belarus boundaries.
He stressed that Minsk “reacted calmly until a large exercise began in Poland which requested reinforcements and larger scope of the exercise.”
Lukashenko referred to the US deployment of a dozen F-16 fighter jets and nearly 300 service personnel to Poland a part of a training exercise which came in response to the crisis in neighboring Ukraine.
Aside from that the US also sent six F-15 fighter jets to Lithuania, in addition to four F-15s, which arrived on January 1, to bolster NATO’ air patrol over Baltic airspace.
“They threw in extra half a dozen fighters and some other planes which operate close to our borders, and we are acting reasonably. The Minister of Defense received such an order long ago and, as I am being told, it [the order] is being fulfilled,” Lukashenko said.
From the west and northwest, Belarus borders on the NATO member states of Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, and sees combat air patrols of these Baltic states’ airspace as a potential threat to its national security.
The situation in neighboring Ukraine, where Belarus leader said “we have seen escalation of the conflict” is affecting interests of his country, he pointed out.
“This escalation is happening not in Syria, Libya or Iraq. It's near our borders,” he stressed.
Lukashenko has called on Ukrainian coup-appointed government to focus on solving domestic conflict rather than on negotiations with the West.
“[They] just have to work, and less run abroad. It is necessary to think about their country and the welfare of the people. How to do it? If necessary, we will advise and help,” Lukashenko said.
When asked if the Ukraine scenario is possible in Belarus, as some media reports speculated, the President ruled out such possibility, saying that “there will be no Maidan in Minsk”.
“We are not afraid of anything, absolutely, even more so, I am not. We have no fundamental, conceptual reasons for such revolutions. And the main reason for that [revolution in Ukraine] we all know: terrible economic collapse, corruption, which led to the collapse of the authorities,” he said
Lukashenko added that Belarus will act within the legal and regulatory framework which exists between Belarus and Russia. “I have said it several times that Russians and Belarusians are one people and we will always be together.”
Russia and Belarus manage reciprocal air defense and joint military maneuvers under agreements signed within the Russia-Belarus Union State which was formed in 1999. Moscow and Minsk also have an agreement (since 2009) on joint protection of the Russia-Belarus Union State's airspace and the creation of an integrated regional air defense network.
Last year, Minsk and Moscow agreed on Russia’s deploying a wing of fighter jets at a military airbase in Belarus. Russia also planned to deliver four battalions of S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Belarus in 2014.
Belarus is not going to be “an initiator of escalation of any process in connection with the Ukrainian events and the confrontation of the West, the US, on the one side and Russia - on the other,” Lukashenko concluded. “We will serve the interests of our country, as well as our friends and neighbors, that’s why don’t try to scare us in this respect.”
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Russia allows Ukrainian surveillance flight to confirm no troops near border
Published time: March 12, 2014 14:11
In a confidence-building step, Russia’s Defense Ministry has given permission for a surveillance flight by Ukraine over Russian territory near the border between the countries. Kiev had claimed Moscow was building up its military presence there.
“The Ukrainians have asked for an unscheduled observation flight over our territory,” Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told reporters in Moscow.
Russia and Ukraine are entitled to surveillance flights over each other's territories following the Open Skies treaty signed in 1992, but Antonov said that Kiev had never asked for one before, and that Moscow was "under no obligation" to allow it immediately.
“We have decided to allow such a flight. We hope that our neighbors are assured that there is no military activity that threatens them on the border.”
Antonov vehemently denied a statement Tuesday by Igor Tenyukh, defense minister for the Kiev coup-appointed government, that Russia had amassed more than 220,000 troops, 1,800 tanks and over 400 helicopters in regions adjacent to eastern Ukraine.
“Ukrainian military officials know full well that the entire [Russian] Southern and Western Military Districts put together don’t have that much equipment. The only way you could arrive at that number of soldiers would be if you counted their families,” Antonov said.
"I would dissuade Mr Tenyukh from adding fuel to the fire of the crisis, which is what he appears to be doing. He openly outlined the reasons for this himself, when he asked the Ukrainian parliament to issue him with more funding," continued the Russian official.
Antonov added that continuing mass training exercises in eastern Ukraine, which Kiev began this week, could plunge Ukraine into even deeper turmoil.
“Staging exercises in an area that is gripped by mass protests against the new regime which came to power as a result of a coup is a risky endeavor, which could further destabilize the political situation in Ukraine,” Antonov insisted.
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