Not a single Russian soldier, not a single piece of military equipment will remain after military exercises in Belarus, FM Makiej says

February 16, BPN. Russian troops and equipment would return to Russia after joint Belarusian-Russian exercises Union Resolve 2022, Foreign Minister Uladzimir Makiej said at a press conference on February 16.

“Not a single soldier, not a single piece of military equipment will remain in Belarus after the exercises,” Makiej said.

He noted that the number of troops “does not exceed the parameters of the Vienna Document” (referring to the Vienna Document on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures adopted by the OSCE in 2011).

Makiej stressed that Belarus views Ukraine as “a neighbour, as a fraternal Slavic nation, and as an important trade and economic partner.” “We did not initiate deterioration of relations with our southern neighbour. The initiator was the other side. Moreover, it was surprising for us when the other side rushed and took a number of steps to implement damaging measures against Belarus, even faster than the EU did, I mean the ban on flights through Ukrainian airspace. The president of Belarus never said he was ready, as you said, for war. We will never come to Ukraine on a tank, we will arrive there on a tractor,” the Foreign Minister said.

He also commented on the replacement of the flags (Belarusian state flag was replaced with the historical national white-red-white flag) in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, noting that the Ukrainian ambassador was summoned to the Foreign Ministry over this matter. “All these days we have been actively working to restore the status quo in that situation in Dnipro, working with the Ukrainian side through the ambassador and through our ambassador in Kyiv. It was a reckless incident. We had a set of very serious measures in stock. I’m glad we didn’t have to use them all the way. Today I received a photo from Dnipro: all the flags of national minorities have been replaced with Ukrainian flags. This is how they decided to get out of this situation. We are always willing to solve issues in a constructive way,” Makiej said.