Belarusian army to set up Southern Operational Command

Alyaksandar Lukashenka, the winner of the 2020 Belarusian presidential election according to the results of the country’s Central Election Commission, has ordered to establish the Southern Operational Command of the Belarusian Armed Forces, state news agency BelTA reports.

“There will be a southern wing in addition to the western one and the southwestern one,” Lukashenka said, quoted by BelTA.

The politician noted that the country’s Defence Ministry offered to establish a southern command a year ago. Right now, there is a rotation of the Belarusian armed forces within the country, he said.

Lukashenka stressed that the need for these changes was dictated by the desire of “the US and its satellite states” to scale up their military presence near Belarus, a state that is considered Russia’s ally. He added that there might be “economic, political and even military pressure” on Belarus through Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

“We have to perform this rotation, it is my strict requirement, and use it to ‘break in' our military personnel.

It is a condition of war time. But without a war for now.

I feel and get reports that the guys are behaving decently. We also have to practice planning in these conditions. We have to make plans how we will act if a war happens, God forbid,” Lukashenka stressed.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Kyiv has repeatedly accused Lukashenka of being complicit in the Russian aggression. He was accused of allowing the Russian forces to set up camp on Belarusian territory and letting them use the country’s infrastructure objects.