MOSCOW: A pair of nuclear-capable Russian long-range bombers patrolled the skies over Belarus on Saturday on a mission intended to underline close defence ties between the two allies amid tensions with the West.
The Russian defence ministry said two Tu-22M3 flew a four-hour mission to practice performing joint tasks with the Belarusian air force and air defence. The bombers were escorted by Belarus’ Su-30 fighter jets, which Russia has supplied to its ally.
Saturday’s Russian bomber patrol marked a third such mission since last month.
The patrol flight comes amid Western concerns over a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine that raised fears of an invasion. Moscow has denied plans for such an attack, but urged the West to provide security guarantees that would exclude Nato’s expansion to Ukraine and the deployment of the alliance’s weapons there demands that are almost certain to be rejected by the US and its allies.
Some Ukrainian officials have voiced concern that Russia may use the territory of its ally Belarus for attacking Ukraine.
Moscow has strongly supported Belarus amid a tense standoff last month when thousands of migrants and refugees, most of them from the Middle East, gathered on the Belarusian side of the border with Poland in the hope of crossing into Western Europe.
The European Union has accused authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of encouraging illegal border crossings as a hybrid attack to retaliate against EU sanctions on his government for its crackdown on internal dissent after Lukashenkos disputed 2020 reelection.
Amid tensions with the West, Lukashenko said last month that his country would be ready to host Russian nuclear weapons.
The Belarusian leader wouldn’t elaborate on what kind of weapons Belarus would be willing to accommodate, but noted that the ex-Soviet nation has carefully preserved the necessary military infrastructure dating back to the time of the USSR.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has described Lukashenkos offer as a serious warning prompted by reckless Western policy.The deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Russia’s relations with the United States have not hit their lowest point yet and security proposals Moscow has made can help ease tensions.
Russia said it wanted a legally binding guarantee that Nato would give up any military activity in Eastern Europe and Ukraine, part of a wish list of security guarantees it wants to negotiate with the West.
It laid out for the first time in detail demands that it says are essential for lowering tensions in Europe and defusing a crisis over Ukraine.
“I think we did not hit the lowest point, thank God, and there is a progress in some aspects at the very least and not everything is hopeless,” Interfax news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying on Saturday.
Moscow needs stable and predictable relations with Washington, he said.
“The situation can be stabilised and improved with the help of such agreements. Without them the situation will remain extremely difficult and tense,” Ryabkov said, according to Interfax.
The Russian proposals were set out in two documents this week — a draft agreement with Nato countries and a draft treaty with the United States, both published by the foreign ministry.
Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2021
