General Staff sees ‘anaconda coils' tightening around Belarus

The press service of the Belarusian Defense Ministry quoted Viktor Gulevich as saying: “While last week our intelligence bodies uncovered 12 field camps designed to accommodate military personnel and hardware, today we have information about the deployment of 14 such camps. They can house dozens of thousands of military personnel. It is also concerning that in addition to the deployment of troops in Poland our Baltic neighbors – Lithuania and Latvia – are increasing their contingents, too. Taking into account Ukraine's aggressive behavior towards Belarus, a belt of unfriendly countries is essentially being established around our country according to the well-known American ‘anaconda coils' concept.”

All the international agreements concerning security and the transparency of military activities are being violated. “Provisions of the 2011 Vienna Document on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures are disregarded. We've invited the Polish side to arrange a bilateral meeting of arms control specialists, to invite our representatives to watch the military activity just the way the bilateral regional agreements demand. But, unfortunately, Poland has yet to accept our proposals, which could have removed the tensions. Moreover, another unfriendly step on the part of European countries was made virtually the other day. Upon NATO's initiative another channel of dialogue was cut off and practical cooperation between NATO and Belarus was suspended. The barefaced militarization of the public opinion in neighboring countries is the most concerning thing in the ongoing processes,” said the chief of the General Staff of Belarus' Armed Forces.