Kremlin rejects claims that the Russian president is pressuring Belarus right into a extra energetic function within the warfare towards Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited Minsk for talks along with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko who has allowed Moscow to make use of his nation as a staging floor for its offensive in Ukraine.
Footage broadcast by Russian state tv confirmed Putin disembarking from a aircraft on Monday at a snow-blanketed airport in Minsk and being greeted warmly by his shut ally, Lukashenko.
Putin’s journey is his first to Minsk since 2019 – earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic and a wave of antigovernment protests in Belarus in 2020, which Lukashenko crushed with sturdy assist from the Kremlin.
Putin mentioned he and Lukashenko mentioned forming “a single defence area” within the area however rejected claims that Moscow was poised to swallow its neighbour.
“Russia isn’t considering any sort of merger. It’s not possible,” Putin mentioned.
Putin mentioned that he supported Lukashenko’s proposal to coach the crews of Belarusian warplanes which have already been modified for utilizing particular warheads – a reference to nuclear weapons.
Lukashenko thanked Putin for offering his army with Iskander short-range missiles and S-400 air defence programs. He additionally mentioned the international locations agreed to proceed to carry joint army workouts.
Ukrainian joint forces commander Serhiy Nayev mentioned earlier than Putin’s arrival: “Throughout [these talks], questions will likely be labored out for additional aggression towards Ukraine and the broader involvement of the Belarusian armed forces within the operation towards Ukraine, specifically, in our opinion, on the bottom.”
Lukashenko has mentioned repeatedly he has no intention of sending troopers into Ukraine.
Extra energetic function?
The Kremlin dismissed the suggestion that Putin desires to push Belarus right into a extra energetic function within the battle.
The RIA Novosti information company quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying such studies have been “groundless” and “silly”.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and his Belarusian counterpart, Viktor Khrenin, have been anticipated to attend the presidential assembly, in line with Minsk.
Russian troopers who moved to Belarus in October will conduct battalion tactical workouts, the Russian Interfax information company reported, citing the Russian defence ministry. It was not instantly clear after they would begin.
Forward of Putin’s arrival, Russian International Minister Sergei Lavrov additionally flew to Belarus on Monday for talks.
Lavrov spoke along with his counterpart, Sergei Aleinik, who took up the put up of overseas minister just some days in the past, in regards to the Kremlin’s warfare towards Ukraine, in line with the overseas affairs ministry in Moscow.
Additionally they mentioned how Russia and Belarus might defend themselves towards political stress from sanctions imposed by the West, its assertion mentioned.
The Belarusian overseas affairs ministry mentioned Lavrov and Aleinik mentioned sanctions, but it surely didn't reference Ukraine.
The ten-month battle in Ukraine is essentially the most important in Europe since World Battle II. It has killed tens of hundreds of individuals, pushed tens of millions from their houses and diminished cities to ruins.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mentioned the nation’s armed forces have been holding agency within the city of Bakhmut, the scene of the fiercest preventing for a lot of weeks as Russia tries to advance in jap Ukraine’s Donetsk area.
“The battlefield in Bakhmut is essential,” he mentioned. “We management the city although the occupiers are doing the whole lot in order that no undamaged wall will stay standing.”
Zelenskyy on Monday known as on Northern European leaders assembly in Latvia to produce his nation with a variety of weapon programs.
Putin casts what he calls Russia’s “particular army operation” in Ukraine because the second when Moscow lastly stood as much as the US-led West, which he says is looking for to capitalise on the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union to destroy Russia.
Kyiv and the West say that assertion is absurd, and Putin has no justification for what they see as an imperial-style warfare of aggression that has put Russia answerable for a few fifth of Ukraine.
Moscow mentioned on Monday that Russian and Chinese language forces would maintain naval drills from Wednesday to December 27, which would come with missile and artillery hearth within the East China Sea.
Whereas the drills have been held yearly since 2012, Moscow has sought to strengthen its political, safety and financial hyperlinks with Beijing in latest months and sees Chinese language President Xi Jinping as a key ally in an anti-West alliance.
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