Belarus to send troops to Syria

Belarus and Russia have agreed on the deployment of Belarusian troops to Syria. Up to 200 Belarusian troops are to provide “humanitarian assistance” to people outside combat zones in Syria alongside Russian soldiers, according to a decree published by the Russian government on Monday.

The mission is to be controlled by the Russian military. While in Syria, the Belarusian troops are to be stationed at Russian air force sites and subordinate to the Russian Armed Forces Centre, but remain under the command of the authorised Belarusian body. The agreement does not contain a timetable for the withdrawal of the troops.

In March 2011, the peaceful revolution in Syria began, which Bashar al-Assad brutally put down, setting the war in motion. In September 2015, Russia officially intervened in the war on Assad’s side and emerged as the regime’s central protecting power. It became the largest and longest foreign deployment of the Russian military since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who lives in exile in Lithuania, criticised the agreement between Minsk and Moscow. She accused Alexander Lukashenko of violating the constitution and the interests of his country with the planned deployment of troops. “Lukashenko is paying with Belarusian sovereignty for the support he received in 2020 to stay in power,” Tikhanovskaya told the AP news agency.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is increasingly reliant on Russian aid after massive protests against what the opposition and Western countries see as his rigged 2020 re-election and because of sanctions.