As noted in the summary, Russian President Putin traveled to Minsk on December 19, 2022 to hold talks with Belarusian President Lukashenko. During the discussion, the presidents spoke of a “single defense space”.
While Russia and Belarus have widely publicized the deployment of Russian units in Belarus, the Belarusian military has recently taken a major but more cautious role in training thousands of newly mobilized Russian reservists, the report said.
According to British intelligence, the use of Belarusian instructors is an attempt to partially fill the shortage of Russian military instructors, many of whom are stationed in Ukraine or have died.
Although Russia and Belarus have extensive experience in military cooperation, Belarusians’ training of mobilized Russian military personnel presents a new challenge. “Russia has traditionally believed that Belarusian forces are inferior to Russia’s, and their use as trainers is a sign of an overstretched Russian military system,” the British Defense Ministry said in a statement.
