redeploy from the Machulishchi airfield to Lida in the Grodno region to provide support for the troops’ operations. Viktor Khrenin, who serves as the country’s defense minister, issued an order on August 19 to beef up the grouping of forces in the Grodno area with the Tochka and Polonez battalions of tactical missiles, a squad of drones, and air defense systems. At a Security Council meeting sometime earlier, Alexander Lukashenko had instructed the defense ministry to closely follow NATO forces’ movements in Poland and Lithuania. Just four days later, General Viktor Khrenin
told Lukashenko that “external forces might use the country’s destabilization as a pretext for a violent change of power in Belarus.” The defense minister warned of a possible NATO attack from the Polish territory. The Belarusian army is in fact part of the Russian military potential, with a joint grouping of forces, a unified air defense system, and a raft of military drills between the two armies. Belarusian army officers study at Russian universities. Under a military cooperation deal, Moscow is allowed to send its armed forces to Belarus for both drills and in case of any emergencies.
29 August 2020
RUSSIAN PROBLEMS IN SYRIA Russia’s military presence on the mostly-Kurdish and U.S.-backed eastern side of the Euphrates river in northeastern Syria entails a grave risk, as evidenced by a recent collision between American and Russian armored vehicles in eastern Syria and the killing of a Russian general in jihadi ambush. SOURCE: SYRIA.MIL.RU
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