Polish ex- Defense Minister: Belarus is preparing for a war

Ramuald Sharametsieu stated that Belarus and Russia are preparing for a war with Poland.

Such an opinion the former Polish Minister of Defense expressed to Uważam Rze periodical, Radio Svaboda reports.

Ramuald Sharametsieu focused the attention on the fact that joint Belarus-Russia military training West-2013 will be held in Belarus in autumn. The military training West-2009, held in Belarus in September 2009 was the biggest in years and their scale was comparable to the one held in Soviet times. Around 100 planes and helicopters, more than 900 tanks, mobile guns and other armored machines took part in the training as well as the ships of the Baltic, Black see and North fleets of Russia.  

The declared goal of the training West-2009 was the repelling of an aggression from the West.

Then the Polish Defense Minister Bagdan Klikh called the training a “demonstration of force”. In his opinion, this goal did not correspond with the related, since not a single country of the North-Atlantic alliance has any aggressive intentions against their Eastern partners.

When commenting  on the preparations of the west-2013 maneuvers, Ramuald Sharametsieu assumed that their scale would be the same as in 2009. He also reminded the words of Lukashenka that Poland threatens Belarus and wants to take Grodno and Brest.

The former Defense Minister believes that Poland is not ready to repel the aggression from the Eastern neighbors.

Referring to the published report “Priorities of the Defense and Armed Forces in 2012”, Sharametsieu added that the main goal of the Defense Ministry were military operations outside Poland.

The former Minister also reminded that Russia clearly defines which countries are its potential enemies – these are Poland, Estonia, Finland and Lithuania.

According to the ex-Defense Minister, the current Polish leadership does not see the weakening of NATO and the fact that the changes in the world politics are unfavorable to the country. Ramuald Sharametsieu quotes Zbignew Brzezinsky, according to whom “the international crisis threatens Poland’s security”, and the country must be able to protect its territory.

“Either to protect itself, or to lose independence”, - this is how the dilemma of the Polish security is formulated by the ex-Minister.

Ramuald Sharametsieu was the head of the Polish Defense Ministry in 1992.