April 15, Pozirk. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) director, Sergey Naryshkin, began his Belarus visit with ominous attacks against the country’s European Union neighbors.
Poland and the Baltic states will be the first to suffer in case of “possible NATO aggression” against Belarus and Russia, told reporters in Minsk.
“They should have understood already, but so far they haven’t, that in case of the North Atlantic Alliance’s aggression against the Union State, we will certainly cause damage to the entire NATO bloc, but those who hold these ideas in the political circles of Poland and the Baltic countries will be the first to suffer to a greater extent,” TASS quoted Naryshkin as saying.
He accused Poland and the Baltic states of sabre-rattling.
“Poland has gone so far as to declare its plans to lay some two million anti-tank mines along the borders with Belarus and Russia’s Kaliningrad province and would very much like, expects and hopes, to receive American nuclear weapons as well,” Naryshkin said.
He did not explain how planting defensive anti-tank mines testifies to these countries’ aggressiveness.
“They have failed to understand that it is the military build-up near the borders of Russia and Belarus that has become one of the factors and causes of the current big, acute and very dangerous crisis on the European continent,” Naryshkin stated, apparently shifting the blame for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the West.
He said he discussed issues of regional and global security with Alaksandar Łukašenka, who “always supports the joint activities of our two states’ special services.”
Naryshkin will head to Mahiloŭ to preside over a joint board meeting of the SVR and Belarusian Committee for State Security (KGB).
