Last Wednesday, Russia's ambassador to Minsk announced that Belarusian enterprises provide 15% of Russia's national defence purchases (oboronzakaz). This figure may grow — Moscow promised to transfer the orders it had with Ukrainian firms to Belarusians. Yet Russia is...
China regards Belarus as a promising market for its armaments. Attempts to establish cooperation between NATO and CSTO have failed. The situation in Afghanistan keeps special services and border guards from CIS countries on their toes: an escalation of the...
On 5 December, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko awarded a Ukrainian passport to Belarusian citizen Sergei Korotkich for “courageous and faithful service” on the battlefield. Korotkich’s dubious past, which includes leading a neo-fascist organisation in Russia and participating in a crackdown...
On 10 November the General Prosecutor’s Office of Lithuania reported that a Vilnius court will try a Lithuanian citizen on espionage charges. The Lithuanian authorities claim that he cooperated with Belarusian security services. As other cases from recent years prove,...
Last week Chief of the Russian Air Force Viktor Bondarev announced that a Russian airbase would be established in Babruysk in 2016. An article from the Moscow Times on expanding the Russian air force presence abroad, subsequently reprinted in...
In a somewhat uncharacteristic move, Belarus started working on a full-scale border guard on the Belarusian-Russian border. Western sanctions are impeding the development of industrial cooperation between Belarus and Russia, which still hopes to draw CIS countries into its confrontation...
On 4 September, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka signed a decree establishing security zones alongside the border with Russia. The measure targets illegal migration, drug trafficking, as well as the illicit movement of goods across the border. Until now, the Belarus-Russia...
Belarus is running out of money as only priority expenditures receive budget financing. Security forces will get a raise in their wages. However, this bump will simply compensate for inflation. Russia still wants to get an air force base in...
On 2 September, Russia vowed to revise and update its national Military Doctrine by the end of 2014. The decision was a direct reaction to NATO’s plans for deploying a rapid-reaction force in Eastern Europe, a move to be...
Without any loud political rhetoric to bolster the Belarusian army, it has nonetheless gradually developed from an appendage cut off of the huge Soviet military into an army more adapted to the needs and capacities of a 9.5-million nation. Belarus...
Reluctant allies: Moscow has to put up with Minsk's position in the war against Ukraine. However, Putin does not see it necessary to hide his irritation any longer. The exhibition of arms and military machinery Milex-2014 was a success.
On 24 July, Russian Ambassador Alexander Surikov revealed Moscow's proposal to Minsk to take over production of several thousand new components used by the Russian defence industry. Russian official openly stated that the conflict in Ukraine was the issue standing...
Russia wants to maintain its control over the minds of the population of CIS countries. Belarus develops its own anti-missile system, the Halberd. The Kremlin hopes that its allies will help it with supplying it military equipment that it is...
The Kremlin pulls together an anti-NATO bloc. Minsk is trying to be helpful to the West as a source of information about the Kremlin's plan towards Ukraine insofar as Vladimir Putin allows them to. The Russian elite is overtaken by chauvinism and are increasingly...
