Vladimir Putin to sell weapons to Belarusian dictatorship for more than $ 1 billion

The President of Belarus, Alexandr Lukashenko, announced this Sunday during a visit to the Russian-Belarusian military exercises Zapad-2021 that his country will buy weapons from Russia for more than a billion dollars, even if he avoided giving an exact figure.

“I won’t quote the number, although it’s no secret that it exceeds $ 1,000 million», Affirmed the president, quoted by the Belta agency.

The Belarusian President thanked Russia for submitting an agreement with “a whole list of weapons that will be provided to us before 2025”And reiterated that his country will receive approximately a dozen planes and “several dozen” Tor-M2 helicopters.

“This is a significant amount and it is an indicator that we and Russia take the Western leadership very seriously, where we are in direct contact with NATO troops,” he said.

The president, considered that last dictator in Europe, said his country currently has its western border covered with Russian S-300 anti-aircraft systems, but Minsk also hopes to receive S-400 systems.

“We talk and we are waiting for supplies from S-400. During the conversation with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, we paid a lot of attention to defense and security issues.. In fact, this topic was covered in all topics, ”he said.

The president stressed that besides the western direction, Belarus warns against hostility on its southern border, for which he called to “prepare”.

“We have 1,200 kilometers of border with Ukraine. This is why we will also have to close this perimeter. And we just talked about the S-400 would be nice there“he claimed.

Lukashenko has once again justified the Zapad-2021 maneuvers, in which more than 200,000 soldiers from both countries participate, by the aggressive position of NATO. “You see how they behave. This is why we cannot relax, given the experience of 1941, when we called for calm – do not respond to provocations and the like – then we received a devastating blow and lost Belarus in just three month. History teaches a lot, ”he said.

The president stressed that Russia and Belarus were not targeting their missiles at neighboring states, but were preparing to “defend their lands”.

The Prime Ministers of Russia, Mikhail Michoustine, and of Belarus, Roman Golovchenko, on Friday signed a series of documents for the economic integration of the two countries within the framework of the State Union.

That same day on active phase of Zapad-2021 maneuvers, which is carried out in both countries and involves 15 ships, some 80 aircraft and up to 760 heavy weapons units.

In early September, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed a decree establishing a 30-day state of emergency on the border with Belarus, in anticipation of these military exercises and fearing a massive flow of migrants. It is the first state of emergency in Poland since the fall of communism in 1989.

For his part, Vladimir Poutine, in receiving Lukashenko in Moscow, considered that these exercises were judicious, since NATO, his strategic adversary, had been deployed in Eastern Europe. The Zapad-2021 maneuvers “are not directed against anyone, but that they are carried out makes sense when we see that other alliances, NATO in particular, are actively increasing their military presence at the borders of the Russian-Belarusian Union “, did he declare. noted.

(With information from EFE and AFP)

KEEP READING: