MINSK, January 17. /TASS/. Belarus and Russia will hold a joint military exercise in February, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday.

"We had made plans for a military exercise in February long ago. Go ahead to set a specific date and announce it so as nobody can reproach us that we have massed up troops all of a sudden and are almost ready to go to war," the BelTA news agency quotes Lukashenko as saying.

Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin has said all questions have been discussed with the Russian side. A date is still to be determined, but the exercise is due in February anyway.

Lukashenko said that the exercise is to be held on the western and southern borders.

"Today we can see that we need to hold a major exercise in this western and southern region, sometimes called the ‘Belarusian balcony’," Lukashenko said. He stressed that there should be a "normal exercise to practice a certain scenario to resist these forces: in the west (Baltic countries and Poland) and in the south (Ukraine)."

Lukashenko recalled that in December 2021 an agreement was reached with Russian President Vladimir Putin for holding a joint exercise on the western border of the union state and on the country’s southern flank.

At the end of the conference, Lukashenko approved the concept of the joint exercise with Russia, codenamed Union Resolve-2022.