MINSK, August 29. /TASS/. Poland and Lithuania have received invitations to send observers to the exercise Combat Brotherhood in Belarus, but there has been no response so far, the State Secretary of Belarus’s Security Council Alexander Volfovich has said.

"Both the Belarusian side and the CSTO Secretariat have invited international observers, military attaches, the diplomatic corps, including our neighbors - Poles and Lithuanians - in accordance with international requirements. I don't know whether they will participate," the BelTA news agency quotes him as saying. Volfovich believes that this approach indicates the open nature of the forthcoming exercises.

At the same time, he pointed out that the Western neighbors never invited representatives from Belarus as observers to monitor the exercises they were holding on their territory. "There have been no attempts to invite the Belarusian side recently," he stated.

Earlier, Volfovich said that Poland and the Baltic states had set course towards militarization. Both were actively building up military presence near the borders of Belarus, as well as arming themselves with offensive rather than defensive weapons, which is "a clear hint at aggressiveness." Under these conditions, Minsk was taking proportionate measures for strategic deterrence.

In 2023, a set of exercises with the CSTO Collective Forces will be held in the form of a joint operational-strategic exercise Combat Brotherhood. A number of joint and special drills are due. Alongside Belarus, which will chair the CSTO in 2023, the organization includes Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.