Alyaksandr Lukashenka said the quiet part out loud. Speaking to reporters earlier this month, the autocratic Belarusian leader declared that his country and Russia had effectively formed “a single army” and appeared to confirm that it was targeting the West.
“We effectively have a single army, with the Belarusian military forming its backbone in the western direction,” Lukashenka said. “If, God forbid, a war starts, the Belarusian army will be the first to engage in the fight, and the western group of Russia’s armed forces will join quickly after to form a joint defense.”
Lukashenka’s remarks would not have been news to anybody who has been paying attention to the increasingly disturbing dynamics between Minsk and Moscow over the past year. The steady militarization of Belarus and the integration of the Russian and Belarusian armed forces have been continuing apace ever since Lukashenka’s brutal crackdown on dissent following the disputed August 2020 presidential election made him a pariah in the West and forced him deeper into Moscow’s arms.