Defence Ministry on plan of Belarus’ international military co-operation for 2025
The plan for Belarus’ international military co-operation this year will include 853 activities – as stated by Valery Revenko, the Chief of the International Military Co-operation Department, Assistant to the Defence Minister for Foreign Military Co-operation, sb.by reports citing the Belarusian Defence Ministry’s press service
“The plan for Belarus’ international military co-operation in 2025 will include 853 activities. The growth in the number of activities will be due to the development of co-operation within the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO). We are interested in developing relations with the African region and Egypt. As for the countries of the far arc, we should also mention South-East Asia. We are planning to develop liaisons with Laos, Thailand and Mongolia. These states are keen to develop relations with Belarus. We are also interested in studying the issues of training our Armed Forces in the fight against terrorism and in the development of peacekeeping in various fields. We are going to intensively develop interaction with Vietnam, primarily in the area of military education,” Mr. Revenko emphasised.
He also spoke about the prospects of military co-operation between Belarus and the SCO members, “Joining this organisation is a milestone event for Belarus and its Armed Forces. It can be predicted that we will take part in the Peace Mission exercises and in the SCO Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Participating in the organisation for the military department is primarily the development of relations with the member states. In addition to our traditional CSTO partners, China, we have a good chance to develop relations with India, Pakistan, and Iran. We assume that 2025 will be the year of intensification of relations,” the Assistant to Belarus’ Defence Minister noted.
Speaking about international events and military exercises, Mr. Revenko said, “In 2025, the MILEX international exhibition of armaments and military equipment will take place. We are already receiving enquiries and seeing interest in this event. We expect a large representation of foreign countries. We will have someone to work with and very good agreements will be concluded. The year 2025 will also see CSTO exercises: Poisk [Search], Vzaimodeistvie [Interaction] and Eshelon [Echelon]. I do not rule out that representatives of the SCO will take part in these manoeuvres as observers. The Zapad-2025 exercise is planned to be one of the largest in recent years, involving over 13 thousand troops. We were obliged to and have already notified all state parties to the Vienna Document that we will be hosting these military drills. We are planning to invite delegations from our allies, friends and partners. We have a favourable attitude towards a number of EU member states and individual NATO countries. For their part, military diplomats are doing their best. Establishing contacts on the one hand, finding friends, partners and levelling critical and other situations which, God forbid, would lead to something uncontrollable – this is the essence of our work, and we will cope with it.”