Lukashenko: NATO members, including Poland, Baltic States, ramping up their strike and offensive potential
This year, eighteen NATO members, including Poland and the Baltic States, intend to increase their military spending to at least 2 percent of GDP, while some countries already spend more than 3 percent of their GDP on weapons – as stated by the President of Belarus, Chairman of the Belarusian People’s Congress Aleksandr Lukashenko, at the 7th Belarusian People’s Congress on April 25th
“Today, the focus is made on ramping up the strike and offensive potential. The total amount of defence spending by NATO members in 2024 will first reach about €1.2 trillion. Moreover, Brussels decided to increase the number of immediate response forces to 300,000 troops (currently 80,000), transform the NATO Baltic air policing mission into a military operation, as well as reorganise combat groups deployed in Poland and the Baltic States into brigade-level formations. We have been reproached all the time for placing nuclear weapons on Belarus’ territory, meaning that we will be the first to be hit if a collision occurs. Meanwhile, Poland and the Baltic States generally gave up their territories in order to completely militarise them and set up strongholds for an attack in the east,” the Belarusian leader stressed.
The Head of State drew attention to the fact that in this regard we should mention the beginning of the practical implementation of the German-Lithuanian agreement envisaging the strengthening of the German military presence in Lithuania. Such data has already appeared in the media.
“On April 8th, an operational group of the German Armed Forces (20 military personnel) was relocated to Vilnius. Its tasks include studying the locations of the contingent and settling preparations for the formation of the brigade headquarters – scheduled to be completed by late 2024,” Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed.
“A brigade-level formation of the German armed forces will be deployed on the territory of Lithuania until 2028, in addition to the forces and means of the NATO joint armed forces currently stationed in Lithuanian Rukla within the framework of NATO Enhanced Forward Presence. The number of the military personnel will be about 5,000,” the President stated.
