By Brian Whitmore
Alyaksandr Lukashenka won’t say when the estimated 30,000 Russian troops currently in Belarus will leave.
Amid the largest Russian military deployment to Belarus since the Cold War, which includes Iskander tactical missiles, S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems, and SU-35 fighter jets, the autocratic Belarusian ruler said he would meet with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin this week to decide “when, on what terms, and on what schedule” the troops will leave. “It will be our decision. This is our territory,” he added.
The Russian deployment to Belarus is ostensibly for military exercises that are scheduled to run until February 20. But they are being deployed menacingly close the Belarusian-Ukrainian border at a time when Russia continues to concentrate more than 100,000 troops near its own border with Ukraine and in the annexed Crimean peninsula. Meanwhile, the Russian Navy is conducting live fire exercises in the Black Sea near Ukraine’s coast.
In an interview with Foreign Policy, Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said the nature of the deployment to Belarus suggests the Russian troops may never leave. “The military build-up in Belarus seems to be something more permanent, unfortunately, and it’s a great concern of ours,” he said.
The most immediate concern about Moscow’s troop deployment to Belarus is, of course, the prospect of them being used as part of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. In addition to increasing the Russian military encirclement of Ukraine, the presence of these troops also means an invasion force striking from Belarus could reach Kyiv in roughly two hours.
But the long-term ramifications of Putin’s militarization of Belarus are equally disturbing and represent the most significant change in the security calculus in Eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War. This would be the case even if Putin had not chosen to instigate and manufacture a crisis with Ukraine.
“Belarusian territory is simply a staging area for the Russian army, and the extent of the threat from Belarus is determined by one factor alone: how keen the Kremlin is to go to war,” Belarusian political analyst Artyom Shraibman wrote in a commentary for the Moscow Carnegie Center.