MINSK. May 31 (Interfax) - Belarus and Russia are taking sufficient measures to maintain the security of the Union State, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said.
"The measures being taken by the Defense Ministry together with the Russian Federation to ensure security are currently sufficient," the BelTA state news agency quoted Khrenin as saying.
"This includes the decisions we have made. The agreement just recently signed with [our] Russian counterpart on the procedure for deploying nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory is the kind of efficient measure which should cool the aggressive tone and belligerent rhetoric coming from our neighbors above all," he said.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Belarusian House of Representatives ratified a protocol to the Belarusian-Russian agreement on the regional group of forces. The protocol specifies the norms of the agreement and permits the deployment of military units of the group's Russian element, and the Russian Armed Forces' military infrastructure facilities that facilitate these units' functioning.