The President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko has announced that Belarus and Russia will deploy thousands of troops in a joint military task force in response to the attack on the Kerch bridge in Crimea on Saturday.
Belarus which is de-facto part of Russia has been used as a staging post since the start of the war and Lukashenko claims there has been aggravation on the western borders.
Lukashenko is also allowing Vladimir Putin to stage a potential offensive in Ukraine and it is expected that the Kremlin will “call up 500,000 mobilised soldiers.”
Lukashenko has ordered Belarusian railway workers to prepare the infrastructure as there will be a large number of trains carrying tens of thousands of troops and military hardware.
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On 30 September three Russian Su-30 fighter jets have arrived at a Belarusian military airfield for the first time since March.
The Hajun monitoring project who are based in Belarus said, this batch of Su-30SM fighters was expected to be delivered in October.
The Hajun report said, “Three Su-30SM multirole fighters of the Russian Aerospace Forces have entered the airspace of Belarus today and landed at the Baranovichi airfield.
“It is worth recalling that the last flights of Russian fighters between Russia and Belarus were at the end of March.
“At that time, planes were leaving our country. The remaining small part of the aircraft at the airfields ‘Baranovichi’ and ‘Lida’ are used to train new pilots of the Russian Aerospace Forces.
“In October 2022, the delivery of the second batch of Su-30SM fighters to Belarus was expected. “But today fighters arrived not from the factory, but those in service with the Russian Aerospace Forces with registration numbers RF-81772, RF-81760 and RF-81758.
“The monitoring group Belarusian Guyun’ continues to monitor the actions and movements of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus on the territory of Belarus.”
Military expert Oleg Zhdanov said, “It is quite possible that the Russian Federation, expecting to call up 500,000 mobilised soldiers by the end of the year, wants to deploy a grouping of troops in Belarus.
Military expert Oleg Zhdanov said, “It is quite possible that the Russian Federation, expecting to call up 500,000 mobilised soldiers by the end of the year, wants to deploy a grouping of troops in Belarus.
“The only question is what they will arm it with, because there is hardly enough equipment for such a grouping in Belarus.
“And Lukashenka will not give away equipment from military units under any circumstances, it’s his security.
“So, I do not exclude that Russia may start transferring mobilised troops to Belarus and try to form there an offensive grouping to re-enter Ukraine.
“How successful this will be and how successful it will be for the Russian Federation – we’ll see.
“But so far the situation is such that the Belarusian railways are preparing the infrastructure to receive a large number of cargo trains.”
