MINSK, December 26. /TASS/. Belarus is open for dialogue with NATO, which was suspended amid Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, a high-ranking Belarusian defense ministry official said on Monday.

"They (NATO countries - TASS) unilaterally suspended [cooperation]. But Belarus is always open for dialogue," Dmitry Ryabikhin, deputy chief of the ministry’s international cooperation department, said in an interview with the STV television channel.

According to Ryabikhin, Belarus' international military cooperation "has not changed either qualitatively or quantitatively" after the launch of the special military operation, but "certain vectors have changed." "As an example, I can cite cooperation with the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), bearing in mind that an application for membership has been filed. It was a military component. It is very important to speak about the SCO’s military component because is we speak about top ten armies in the world, these top ten include five members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in terms of the number of troops only," he explained.

He stressed that as part of its policy of openness, Belarus invites "all without exception" military attaches to all events to show the real state of things. "Thus, when there were speculations about the situation in border regions with Ukraine, we brought all military attaches accredited by the defense ministry there to show the real situation," he recalled, adding that foreign diplomats had a possibility to speak to soldiers and commanders and other officials.

On February 24, Putin launched a special military operation in Ukraine in response to a request for help from the heads of the Donbass republics. He stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, but aimed to demilitarize and denazify the country. After that, the West imposed sweeping sanctions against Russia and beefed up arms supplies to the Kiev regime worth tens of billions of dollars.