Belarus’ Lukashenko Teases Moscow, Holds a Joint Military Drill With NATO UK
Just a tiny one for now, for the sanctioned "Outpost of Tyranny"
On Sunday, Belarus and the United Kingdom started joint military drills, the Belarusian Defense Ministry reports.
Belarusian peacekeeping forces and a unit of British Royal Marines will be training together for two weeks. The exercise is aimed at preparing a peacekeeping company of the 103rd Vitsebsk separate airborne brigade for participating in United Nations peacekeeping activities.
British military personnel started arriving in Belarus on February, 29; the greater part of a Royal Marines unit arrived on March, 1. According to the British MoD, thirty members of 42 Commando will conduct cold weather training on the two-week exercise.
“Exercise Winter Partisan, which lasts until 14th March, will see the Green Berets from Devon train in integrated teams with members of the Belarusian Armed Forces, sharing experience and expertise. Troops will train in winter survival skills such as camouflage and winter movement skills including abseiling and skiing, before putting them to the test in an exercise setting,” the press service of the UK government reports.
Belarus has a company of peacekeepers; 100 soldiers were trained abroad and ‘they are ready to serve ‘in every region of the world’, the then Defense Minister Andrey Raukou said in 2018.
Source: Belsat
As well as the military training, troops will engage in cultural activities looking at the two countries’ shared history – particularly both nations’ contribution in World War II in what is the 75th Anniversary year of VE Day. The Royal Marines will visit a World War II Museum in Minsk and participate in a Remembrance event.
So it’s not exactly the Ukraine situation, Minsk will still justify it as wanting to act as a “bridge” between the West and Russia, albeit the timing of it during a subsidies dispute calls that into question.
In that photo of Lukashenko with all the senior officers, how about that cap he’s wearing? He wouldn’t need an umbrella if it started to rain.
I don’t completely understand what’s going on between Minsk and Moscow.
The Russian press in English was regularly talking about a union of the two countries, and they periodically run friendly photos of Lukashenko and Putin, things like them playing hockey together.
But then there’s what sound like fairly serious disagreements about energy supplies and prices. And some pollutants in an oil pipeline. And of course this.
Lukashenko does have a reputation as something of an old tyrant.
Lukashenko’s behaviour is starting to remind me of the duplicitous behaviour of Erdogan.
childish tbh, and it will blow up in his face eventually
And moustaches.
there r many jokes about Lukashenko in Russia and Ukraine….however, while conditions in Russia and Belarus have improved during the past 2 decades, in Ukraine conditions have worsened
Is Lukashenko related to Porkashenko?
Yes. They’re both horse thieves and members of the same -enko family.