The Parliament of Belarus yesterday approved by a vote the suspension of the country's participation in the Treaty on the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) , the Associated Press reported, quoted by BTA, noting that the 1990 agreement was one of the continent's leading military doctrines.
AP recalls that Russia finally withdrew from the CFE last year.
The bill to freeze Belarus' membership, introduced by the country's authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko earlier this month, would allow the country, an ally of Russia in the war with Ukraine, to increase its arsenal, the agency noted.
Belarusian MPs unanimously approved the bill and now Lukashenko has to sign the new law.
The CFE sets limits on the number of tanks, machine guns, military aircraft and heavy artillery that can be in service in Europe. Its purpose was to achieve a military balance between the West and the countries of the former socialist bloc that were members of the Warsaw Pact.
According to the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, according to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the army of Belarus cannot exceed one hundred thousand people. According to AP data, the Belarusian army currently has 63,000 conscripts, and 300,000 are in reserve. Experts are of the opinion that with its withdrawal from the treaty, Belarus, which borders three NATO member countries - Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, will now be able to increase its military strength and the number of its weapons, although this is not necessarily the case. happened, AP points out.
Belarusian military analyst Alexander Alesin expressed to the AP the opinion that Belarus's actions stem from Russia's dissatisfaction that Minsk has maintained its participation in the CFE after Moscow's departure.