Russia plans to deploy
fighter jets in Belarus this year and eventually establish an air base in the
former Soviet republic, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday.
The moves would
increase Russia's military presence in Belarus, viewed by Moscow as a buffer
between Russia and NATO, and could unnerve neighbouring members of the Western
alliance.
Russia agreed in 2009
to set up a joint air defense system with Belarus and talks were held before
then on establishing an air base there, but few concrete steps have been taken.
"We have begun
considering the plan to create a Russian air base with fighter jets here,''
Shoigu said at a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in the
capital, Minsk.
"We hope that in
2015 there will be a regiment of warplanes [in Belarus] which will serve to
defend our borders,'' Shoigu said in a portion of the meeting shown on Russian
state television.
Shoigu said the plan is
for the first fighter jets to arrive in Belarus this year. Russian aviation
regiments normally consist of roughly 60 warplanes.
While Russian and NATO
officials say armed conflict between the former Cold War adversaries is all but
unthinkable, relations are strained and former Soviet satellites now in the
Western alliance are particularly wary of the Russian military.
An anti-missile shield
the United States is deploying in Europe together with NATO nations is a chief
source of tension.
Shoigu's remarks
coincided with a meeting in Brussels at which Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
told NATO that Moscow still wants guarantees the system would not be used
against Russia, despite a recent decision to scale it back.
Ruslan Pukhov, director
of the Moscow defence think-tank CAST, said the deployment of fighters in
Belarus would do little to increase security and would be seen by Russia's
Western neighbors "as a display of hostility''
Russian President
Vladimir Putin has been seeking to strengthen Moscow's military and economic
ties with other former Soviet republics since he came to power in 2000.
Russia has an air base
in Kyrgyzstan, in Central Asia, and is the most powerful nation in a security
alliance of ex-Soviet states, the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO).
Russia uses a
Soviet-era early-warning radar station in Belarus and has supplied it with
weapons including air defense missile batteries.
Lukashenko told Shoigu
that the West "should understand that if they look at us will ill
intentions, we will react'', according to Belarusian state news agency Belta.
But he made no specific
public comment on Russia's plans for the deployment of fighters or a base, and
the Foreign Ministry declined to comment.
Lukashenko's
suppression of dissent has made him a pariah in the West but he has also been
wary of giving Moscow too much influence on the nation of 10 million.
Sources :
http://www.voanews.com/content/russia-belarus-fighter-jets/1647648.html
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