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Polish Defence Ministry: Offensive weapons to be deployed in Belarus

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Polish Defence Ministry: Offensive weapons to be deployed in Belarus

Assurances of the Belarusian authorities on defensive character of the country's military cooperation with Russia are not true.

Poland's former minister of defence Janusz Onysziewicz, a current aide to the minister of defence, said in Studio Wschód programme on TVP that Warsaw was concerned over a new military base in Belarus and purchases of Russian fighter aircraft.

Magnus Christiansson, lecturer at the Swedish National Defence College, Igor Korotchenko, retired colonel of the Russian army and editor-in-chief of the magazine National Defence, and Tomasz Szatkowski, head of the Polish Centre for Strategic Studies, took part in the programme. The topic of military cooperation between Minsk and Moscow and violation of Sweden's airspace by Russian fighter aircraft and bombers on March 29 was discussed. The information about the border violation appeared only on April 23.

Janusz Onyszkiewicz said deployment of S-300 missiles in Belarus and an agreement to deploy an air regiment, earlier announced by Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu, can be regarded as offensive actions.

“Under the country's Constitution, Belarus is a neutral state. But the country does not only keeps the military weapons it inherited from the Soviet Union, but also develops them. I mean S-300 missiles, which are definitely defensive. But fighter jets are offensive weapons. Of course, it raises concerns,” Janusz Onyszkiewicz said.

The former defence minister stressed that planes cannot be considered to be exclusively defensive weapons. All modern aircraft are both defensive and offensive,” Janusz Onyszkiewicz said.

Many experts suppose the flight of Russian fighter jets over Sweden and opening an air base in Belarus to be a response to the “teddy bear attack”, when a Swedish light plane dropped teddy bears with pro-democracy labels over the country on July 4. The Belarusian Ministry of Defence said  the country's borders had not been violated and called the video on the internet a fake. A month later, the Belarusian ruler admitted the fact of violation of the Belarusian border by the Swedish aircraft. The dictator later dismissed head of the State Border Committee Ihar Rachkouski and commander of the Air Force and Air Defence Troops Dzmitry Pakhmelkin.

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