Volfovich: foreign diplomats invited to Combat Brotherhood-2023 CSTO exercise
From September 1st-6th, a planned joint operational-tactical exercise of the CSTO member countries – Combat Brotherhood-2023 – will be held on the territory of Belarus, and representatives of the foreign diplomatic corps have been invited to this event as observers – as noted by State Secretary of Belarus’ Security Council Aleksandr Volfovich during his meeting with Santa Bremor staff in Brest
Aleksandr Volfovich drew attention that Poles and Lithuanians don’t invite their neighbours to exercises held on their territories near the Belarusian border, “More than 150 exercises took place this year on the territory of neighbouring states. Neither the Russian nor the Belarusian military have been invited to any of them as observers in accordance with international treaties.”
Speaking about the presence of Wagner PMC fighters on the territory of Belarus, Aleksandr Volfovich noted that the involvement of instructors with combat experience is ‘normal international practice’, “Wagner is not a threat to anyone. Agreements and contracts for the provision of instructor services have been concluded with them. They work as instructors at training grounds and share their colossal combat experience, teaching our military personnel how to conduct combat operations nowadays, based on the realities and experience that they have gained in Africa, Ukraine and other parts of the world. These are military professionals. Why can’t we use their experience to maintain combat readiness and train our servicemen of all security structures? This is normal international practice. After all, the Poles do not say that there are over 11,000 foreign military personnel on the territory of Poland, of which about 10,000 are American soldiers. The American military are engaged in the same things on the territory of neighbouring states as the Wagner PMC is with us. They can do this, but Belarus cannot use such experience and practice?”
Aleksandr Volfovich named one more figure: today over 32,000 foreign servicemen are in Eastern Europe as a whole.
