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by Steve Sweeney
International editor
BELARUSIAN President Alexander Lukashenko says that Russia is set to deliver modern military hardware to the country as the nations prepare for joint war games exercises later this month.
“Russia in the near future will supply us — I won’t say how much money or what — with dozens of planes, dozens of helicopters, the most important air defence weapons,” he said yesterday.
“Maybe even S-400s [surface-to-air missiles]. We need them very much as I’ve said in the past. In a word, the most modern equipment.
“We will equip ourselves. If we see during the exercise that we need something else, then we will buy it from the Russian Federation and commission it,” he said.
The Zapad 2021 military drills will last from September 10 until September 16 and come amid heightened tensions between Belarus, Nato and the European Union.
They have been at loggerheads since a disputed election last August, which was won by Mr Lukashenko with 80 per cent of the vote.
The Belarusian leader, who has been in power since 1994, claims that protests against his rule have been orchestrated by the United States and its allies.
He has accused Western powers of plotting regime change in the former Soviet state, including a Washington-backed coup and assassination attempt which was foiled by Belarusian security officials earlier this year.
The EU has imposed a raft of sanctions targeting Belarusian government officials and has swung its support behind opposition figure Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who is in self-imposed exile in Lithuania.
Nato member states have conducted military exercises on Belarusian borders while Washington has pumped millions into opposition parties, NGOs, so-called “free trade unions” and media organisations to lay the ground for the ousting of Mr Lukashenko.
US President Joe Biden committed $60 million (£43.3m) in “military aid” yesterday to Ukraine, citing “Russian aggression.”
Talks will be held between Mr Lukashenko and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin next week on the eve of the joint military exercises.
