MINSK, November 13. /TASS/. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko believes that it is crucial for Minsk to bolster defense security together with Russia within the Union State.
"As far as defense and security are concerned, we have no questions at all. I simply cannot tell you everything. We have conducted, are conducting, and will continue to conduct such operations in defense of our security that neither the West, nor the European Union may dream of," Lukashenko said in an interview with Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of the Russian monthly National Defense.
The president hailed the high level of interaction between the Belarusian and Russian security and intelligence agencies.
"We have no problems at all. If we have to get involved, well, the Russians have eventually realized that Belarus’ KGB, even though it is much smaller, is a powerful fist," the Belarusian leader stated.
He recalled that "everything - both the Soviet intelligence and foreign counterintelligence - used to be concentrated in Moscow."
"It is huge basis, it is knowledge. And Putin has opened that for Belarusians. We study together, watching how we do, how you do, and draw certain conclusions," Lukashenko said.
The president praised the cooperation between military and diplomats of Belarus and Russia as exemplary.
"We have the same weapons. We use Russian, Soviet weapons, just as you do," he said. "We have tactics, theory and practice, everything is basically the same as it was. This offers us an opportunity to conduct joint operations, speaking the same language," he said.
Lukashenko is convinced that neither Belarus nor Russia will ever be "family to the West."
"We will never be. They will merely exploit us, like they are exploiting Ukraine," Lukashenko stressed.
The president mentioned that his stance had not been always understood and perceived in Russia.
"I was reproached for ‘feeding’ Russia with integration once again. Look, nobody feeds anyone," he stressed.