Belarusian Armed Forces Commence Military Exercises Near Ukraine, Lithuania, and Poland Borders

Today, exercises of the territorial defence forces will start in several districts of pro-Russian Belarus. This is reported by BelTA and Reformation with reference to the Ministry of Defence of Belarus. 

Thus, from 2 to 4 April, under the leadership of the military commissar of the Gomel region, a command and staff exercise will be held with the territorial defence forces of the Rogachev and Kormiany districts "as part of a comprehensive inspection of the territorial defence of the Gomel region".

Similar exercises will be held in Voronovskiy district of Grodno region from 2 to 4 April.

The purpose of the exercise is to assess the readiness of officials of military units of the territorial troops to perform training and combat missions, improve the skills of reserve officers in leading subordinates, and train personnel to perform their duties in the course of solving territorial defence tasks. 

"During the exercise, it is planned to work out the issues of protection and defence of the territorial defence facility, as well as participation in the implementation of martial law measures with the involvement of volunteers of the people's militia," the Ministry of Defence of Belarus said.

The Ministry of Defence also said that from 2 to 26 April, a training camp with persons liable for military service of the territorial troops will be held under the leadership of the head of the Vileika District Executive Committee of the Minsk Region.

"As part of the training, the territorial troops will be received and provided with comprehensive support with the involvement of the local mobilisation deployment base," the ministry explained.

As a reminder, Belarus has been testing the combat readiness of its armed forces since 11 March. Among other things, communications troops, anti-aircraft missile units, and air defence units are currently undergoing training. At least 3,000 reservists are involved in the exercises. It has also been reported that "Wagnerites" (some of the mercenaries from the so-called Wagner group, disbanded by the Kremlin, who were supposed to remain in Belarus) are taking part in the exercises.

As previously reported by The Gaze, last week self-proclaimed Belarusian President Lukashenko publicly discussed ways to militarily seize the Suwałki corridor, a land bridge between Poland and Lithuania that separates Belarus from Russia's Kaliningrad region. The purpose of such statements was obviously an attempt to destabilise the situation in the region. 

The dissemination of the threatening video was authorised by dictator Lukashenko and constitutes an open threat and blackmail of NATO countries with the possibility of aggression.

By using Lukashenko, Putin seeks to intimidate Western countries into redirecting their efforts and resources to help Ukraine defend the Suwałki Gap.