Expert on defence capability of Belarus, Russia

Posted: 15.11.2023 16:21:00 15 November, 16:21

An agreement on mutual security guarantees between Belarus and Russia – which has actually come to its signing phase – has matured as a vital necessity, becoming actually a response to the fiction of the Budapest Memorandum. The declarative guarantees stipulated in the latter have to be promptly replaced with allied, relevant and effective ones. The previous guarantees did not just fail: no one has actually included them. Therefore, our security was under threat, which had not even observed before the signing of that memorandum.

Under the sauce of the Budapest Memorandum, the West has disarmed us, thereby providing guarantees to itself, rather than to us – as promised. We have got literally trapped in a ring of hostile contingents, which falsely promised us protection and security. The militarisation of neighbouring countries is galloping and growing, and no reasonable limits are visible. Their strategies are transforming from defensive to clearly offensive, therefore our agreement is designed to at least mirror the entire spectrum of threats – coming from the West not only today, but also tomorrow – by the security level. Any guarantee is a factor of prevention in the future – or, to be more correct, it is a look ahead. With this in view, the fact that we have now to develop and sign an agreement on security guarantees suggests that the forecasts of the development of the situation around us are far from comforting. We should make the revanchists of the West to believe that any attempt to set foot on our territory for the purpose of aggression has no chance of success. Therefore, the border line of our Union State has become red, beyond which nothing good awaits them. Their future forecasts should already indicate that an increase in the number and armament of their armies is not a condition for a successful offensive, but the number and volume of irreparable losses when our security guarantees work.

This agreement is not spontaneous, but it is primarily the result of the political foresight of the leaders of Belarus and Russia and the consolidation of decisions in the most important areas of the Union State agenda, especially in the field of security.

A year ago, the Belarusian President said that the West failed to cope ‘with the functions of a global regulator and a guarantor of stability’, transforming from a Budapest security guarantor into a threat. Accordingly, we needed our own guarantees to their so-called guarantees.

In spring, the presidents of Belarus and Russia, Aleksandr Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin, adopted a strategy for further security measures in the context of the escalation of the situation around the Union State by the West.

Belarus has deployed Russian tactical nuclear weapons and modern delivery systems on its territory. As a result, thanks to the decisions of the Union State leaders in the field of security, there are no more personal threats now: they are all common, of the allies, and any of them will be perceived by both countries as their own.

As part of the implementation of the decisions taken by the heads of state, the State Secretary of Belarus’ Security Council, Aleksandr Volfovich, and the Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, Nikolai Patrushev, discussed the issues of deepening co-operation between the special services, law enforcement agencies and military departments of our countries, as well as new approaches to ensuring security, taking into account the changing military-political situation in Europe. A special emphasis was placed on countering challenges and threats to security coming from Ukraine, where the situation is becoming unmanageable. It was announced that the agreement on mutual security guarantees between Belarus and Russia would be presented to the presidents of the two countries in the near future.

The branch – on which the ghosts of RzechPospolita and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were sitting – would be cut off after this agreement is signed.

Moreover, the plans of Biden, Borrell, Ursula von der Leyen and others (it is even hardly possible to list them all) are now going in the same direction as Napoleon and Hitler: into the furnace of history.

By national security expert Aleksandr Tishchenko