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Belarus has no aggressive plans regarding neighboring countries — military

Viktor Gulevich stressed that there were no Belarusian troops in Ukraine

MINSK, March 1. /TASS/. The Belarusian armed forces are prepared to defend the country’s sovereignty, but they have no aggressive plans regarding neighboring countries, the chief of the General Staff, First Deputy Defense Minister Viktor Gulevich, said after a meeting of the Security Council on Tuesday.

"We have no aggressive plans regarding neighboring countries. Our prime task is the protection of the border and territorial integrity," the BelTA news agency quotes Gulevich as saying.

He stressed that there were no Belarusian troops in Ukraine. The Belarusian army goes ahead with performing its routine duties on the national territory.

Gulevich said President Alexander Lukashenko had set the task of tightening security on the border, deploying extra forces and means to guarantee the country’s military security in the south, northwest and west. He acknowledged that the situation around Belarus remained complicated. In this connection he recalled NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s statements regarding the decision to alert NATO’s Response Force.

"It may be a rather large group, deployed on the borders with Belarus," Gulevich said.

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