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Belarus and China began 11-day joint military training exercises on Monday, Belarus’ Defense Ministry said – with activities taking place just miles from the border with NATO and EU union member Poland.
Belarusian Army Major General Vadim Denisenko said in a Telegram post that the joint anti-terrorism training “Attacking Falcon” exercise in Belarus will see military groups from both countries “work together” as a unit at certain levels.
“The events in the world are complex, the situation is complex, therefore, having studied new forms and methods of conducting war, here we will work on all these moments, considering all the new things learned over the past two years,” Denisenko mentioned.
The joint exercise is being held in a marshy farmland near the city of Brest on the Belarus-Poland border and some 40 miles from Minsk’s border with Ukraine. They come at a time when Russia’s invasion of that country, more than two years in the making, has left geopolitical dynamics bleak and poses a threat to broader regional security.
Beijing and Minsk have been strengthening their ties in recent years under Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, both autocrats and strong allies of Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
The anti-terrorism drills began with the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Warsaw, where he signed a security memorandum of understanding with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Additionally he ushered in the eve of NATO’s 75th annual summit in Washington – a meeting where leaders will consider mobilizing backup for Ukraine nearly two and a half years after Russia’s invasion.
NATO and the EU have long accused Belarus of weaponizing the border by pushing asylum seekers from third countries onto its borders, and the joint exercise would clearly be viewed by some as an additional provocation. CNN has contacted NATO for comment.
Belarus has been a key Russian best friend in the Kremlin’s fight over Ukraine. Moscow has partially weakened Belarus as a launching home for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, gathering troops on the Ukrainian border during upcoming joint military exercises. On the final day Putin also announced that Russia would deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
China has emerged as a key diplomatic and economic lifeline for Russia since its invasion of Ukraine, and has been accused by Western leaders of boosting Moscow’s war effort while supplying dual-utility goods – a Allegations which Beijing denies.
Belarus’ Defense Ministry said troops from China’s National Liberation Army arrived in Belarus over the weekend. It published a sequence of photos showing Chinese soldiers unloading equipment from a military shipment plane and said the exercises would be suspended until July 19.
China’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday that the drills would coincide with “hostage rescue operations and anti-terrorism missions.”
“The aim of the training is to enhance the training level and coordination capabilities of the participating troops, as well as deepen practical cooperation between the armies of the two countries,” it said.
Over the weekend, a delegation from China’s Central Army Commission held talks with other countries in Minsk, where the two sides discussed “prospects of Belarusian-Chinese cooperation on military personnel training” and the untapped potential of cooperation in line with Belarus’s security. Topics explained. Ministry.
The latest development in their security cooperation comes days after Belarus on Thursday joined the Beijing and Moscow-backed Shanghai Cooperation Group (SCO).
Founded in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to fight terrorism and promote border security, the SCO has evolved in recent years as Beijing and Moscow focus on transforming the bloc from a regional security membership are doing. Geopolitical resistance to Western establishments took place in Central Asia through the US and its allies.
Belarus’s outreach within the bloc – lauded by Xi and Lukashenko at a gathering on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Kazakhstan the previous day – was as widely evident through witnesses as any other sign of that change.
Later, Xi hailed “great progress” in relations between the two countries — a sentiment echoed in a meeting in Beijing on Monday between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his newly appointed Belarusian counterpart Maxim Ryazhenkov.
According to a readout from China’s Foreign Ministry, Wang and Ryazhenkov affirmed that both sides will “firmly support each other” on issues related to their core interests and fundamental issues, including their commitment to “reject unilateral hegemony.” Ambition was also noted – a connection due to their shared opposition to an international chain they consider to be dominated by the US.
