MINSK. Feb 16 (Interfax) - In case of foreign aggression against Belarus, the Russian troops belonging to the regional group of forces stationed in the country will be subordinated to Minsk, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said.
"If suddenly aggression is committed against Belarus, [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin and I have agreed that this division will be put at my disposal and will fight as part of the Belarusian-Russian joint group," the state news agency BelTA quoted Lukashenko as saying at a meeting with foreign journalists in Minsk on Thursday.
Speaking of the regional group of forces, Lukashenko said Russian troops have been stationed in Belarus not in order to attack Ukraine but to improve interoperability with Belarusian forces to be prepared to repel possible aggression against Belarus.
"We have everything planned and envisioned, so that the Americans shouldn't criticize us for hiding something. We clearly understand how many tanks, APCs, troops, and so on we will have. After all, we aren't concealing it that a large unit of air and air defense forces has been redeployed to Belarus. They're at my airfields," Lukashenko said.
Belarus relies on Russian aerial reconnaissance, he said.
"Similarly to how the Americans fly in Poland along our border, we fly back and forth over our country together with the Russians. We rely on Russia's aerial reconnaissance, and the A-50 aerial surveillance plane has also been relocated here," Lukashenko said.