Kremlin ‘Not Ready’ to Comment on Lukashenka’s Refusal to Deploy Russian Airbase

The Kremlin intends to clarify the arguments of Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka regarding plans to deploy a Russian airbase in that country.

“There has been no talk of deploying a Russian airbase on Belarusian territory,” Lukashenka said on October, 6.

“I am not ready to comment (on Lukashenka’s statement) as of yet,” Russian news agency TASS quotes Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying. “This must be thoroughly checked, and only then we will be able to say something.”

It is still the only official response to Lukashenka’s statement, Belsat reports.

“We don’t need a base these days. We don’t need military air forces either. We need certain weapons. It is what I’ve been saying to Putin and earlier to Medvedev,” the Belarusian leader stressed.

In September, the Russian government presented Putin a dreft project on the establishment of a military airbase in Belarus. The Russian president signed the document and empowered the government to prepare the corresponding agreement in Minsk. The Belarusian authorities had never commented the situation before yesterday’s statement of Lukashenka.