MINSK, Feb 9 - RIA Novosti. Preparations for the Russian-Belarusian exercises "Allied Resolve-2022" are proceeding as openly as possible, Deputy Foreign Minister of Belarus Sergei Aleinik said in an address to the participants of the conference "Collective Security in a new era: the experience and prospects of the CSTO" in Moscow.
The appeal of Aleinik was announced by the Permanent and Plenipotentiary Representative of Belarus to the CSTO Vyacheslav Remenchik.
"Preparations for the exercises are held as transparently as possible, widely covered by the defense departments of Belarus and Russia, the mass media of the two countries. At the same time, the public of European states continue to be frightened by every joint Belarusian-Russian exercise, deliberately forgetting that after each exercise all troops return back to the points of permanent deployment in Belarus and Russia," Sputnik Belarus quotes Aleinik.
At the same time, according to him, Belarus and the Russian Federation are accused of escalating the situation in the region in connection with the exercises.
As part of the verification of the reaction forces of the Union State of Belarus and the Russian Federation, groups of troops were relocated and created in the republic at the first stage (until February 9). At the second stage (from February 10 to 20), joint Belarusian-Russian exercises "Allied Resolve-2022" will be held, within the framework of which issues of suppressing and repelling external aggression, as well as countering terrorism and protecting the interests of the Union State will be worked out.
Kiev and Western states have recently been constantly claiming that Russia is intensifying "aggressive actions" near the borders of Ukraine. The press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov stated that Russia moves troops within its territory and at its discretion. According to him, this does not threaten anyone and should not worry anyone. Russia has repeatedly rejected accusations of "aggressive actions" by the West and Ukraine, stating that it does not threaten anyone and is not going to attack anyone, and statements about "Russian aggression" are used as an excuse to deploy more NATO military equipment near Russian borders. The Russian Foreign Ministry previously noted that Western statements about "Russian aggression" and the possibility of helping Kiev defend itself from it are both ridiculous and dangerous.
