Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 7 April (BelTA) – In an interview with the interstate television and radio company Mir, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko talked about the benefits the country gets from its participation in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), BelTA has learned.

“The primary benefit is that we get the latest profound knowledge, first of all about the current wars. We ourselves do not lag behind either. We have been developing our military science. We get this knowledge, however, from the Russian Federation in the first place. Our military, ministers and generals, act together, and we, together with President Putin, are also in the know,” Alexander Lukashenko said.

Belarus has an opportunity to develop, together with other CSTO member states, its military industrial sector, and hence, get most advanced armament. “If we need, for instance, some aircraft, armor (we modernize the hardware we have), we buy the most sophisticated weapons from Russia at the Russian domestic prices. It is important as we can secure our army with the latest armament,” the President said.

“I do not think these processes in our countries, and even in Russia, would be so smooth if there was no CSTO. This, among other things, helps us analyze the situation in the world and elaborate joint actions. Together we have seen the danger of cyber attacks, for instance (it is a very dangerous phenomenon today). Jointly we started responding to this information confrontation as we are constantly attacked in the information field. We have problems in this area as well. We sometimes confront each other which can be called nothing but the information confrontation that can lead to a war. New types of threat are emerging and we see them together and together respond to them. This cooperation can also be attributed to the CSTO,” the head of state noted.