Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Belarusian Foreign Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov on Nov. 22 in the city of Brest, close to the Belarus-Poland border. The meeting is occurring at a point when the Belarusian press is emphasizing the organizing of openly terrorist operations in Poland and Lithuania, aimed at intervening in Belarus’ presidential elections next year, with organized Belarus dissidents who have been mobilized into military formations by their neighbors.
The Brest Fortress is also important as the scene of major battles when Nazi Germany moved eastward in 1941, and it will be the location of major celebrations in 2025 as they celebrate the end of World War II. Lavrov and Ryzhenkov also discussed the creation of a “Eurasian Charter of Diversity and Multipolarity in the 21st Century,” which Belarus launched at this year’s Oct. 31-Nov. 1 Minsk International Conference on Eurasian Security and signed a signed a joint statement on their shared vision. The two also discussed the further development of the Russia-Belarus Union State.
In his comments, Ryzhenkov described the West’s attempts to launch “color revolution” operations against Belarus. “This kind of subversive work against Belarus has been going on for more than four years since 2020,” he said. “Throughout almost the entire existence of the Belarusian state, which independently determines its course, attempts to remove the country’s leadership, the President, have been undertaken to one degree or another many times. The only thing is that in recent years, such activities have acquired completely openly terrorist forms,” he remarked.
To the question on the nuclear cooperation, Lavrov replied: “As for the updated Nuclear Doctrine of the Russian Federation and how it relates to the activities of the Union State, I have already mentioned that two draft documents have been prepared for the Supreme State Council meeting, which will take place before the end of the year.
“The first document is the Union State Security Concept. The second is a draft bilateral interstate agreement on security guarantees. The content of the updated nuclear doctrine is fully aligned with these two Russian-Belarusian documents.”
Earlier Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko said that if Belarus were invaded by a foreign power, it would reserve the right to respond with nuclear weapons.
