Belarus and Russia have reached an agreement on deployment of a joint regional group of forced, Belarusian news agency BelTA reported on October 10. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko reportedly said this at a meeting on security matters in Minsk on October 10.
Belarusian president, in particular, recalled that he had a one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin after the informal CIS summit in St. Petersburg. "Given the aggravation on the western borders of the Union State, we agreed to deploy a regional group of forces of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. This complies with our documents. It says that if the threat level reaches the level as it is now, we begin to use the Union State group of forces. The basis (I have always said this) of this group is the army, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus. I must inform you that the formation of this group has begun. It's been going on for, I think, for two days. I gave an order to start forming this group," the Belarusian leader was cited as saying by BelTA.
Meanwhile, CNN reports that the head of the Center for Civil Liberties, Ms. Oleksandra Matviichuk, whose organization jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize on October 7, has called for an international tribunal to bring Russian President Vladimir Putin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and “other war criminals to justice.”
In a Facebook post on October 7, Matviichuk said she was glad that the center had received the prize, along with the human rights group Memorial and jailed Belarusian advocate Ales Bialiatski.
She called for Russia to be removed from the United Nations Security Council for what she called “systemic breaches of the UN Charter.”
