Lukashenko “leaked” secret data to NATO without consent from Russia
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko conveyed information regarding Russia's defense capabilities to NATO representatives during the Zapad-2017 exercises.
Retired Colonel Vladimir Trukhan, a member of the working group on the creation of a Russian regional group of troops (forces) in Belarus, announced this on the PolitWera YouTube channel, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“As my colleagues told me, he leaked the details of the application plan to them.” Not everything of course, but some information. Moreover, without our consent.
To understand the seriousness of this document: I left 10 years ago, still not allowed to travel abroad, simply because I was working on some aspects of the old document, which was lost in 2015,” Trukhan said.
However, he expressed doubt that the Belarusian side was allowed to know Russia’s serious military secrets.
“The question is what Belarusians are allowed to do. I don't know. This was not my area of work. But I doubt that ours did not take into account their cunning. They believe that by jumping between us and NATO, they will find their piece of bread. I’ll give you 100 rubles that there is a plan to implement it in case Lukashenko plays with multi-vector politics and Belarus starts to create obstacles for us,” Trukhan said.
He did not agree with the assertion of Western experts that the turning point in military cooperation between Russia and Belarus was the Zapad-2017 exercise, when Lukashenko insisted on reducing the number of Russian participants and invited 5 observers from NATO.
“Most of the stories became clear back in 2009, when we arrived in Minsk. We realized that they were not going to do anything serious, that we were playing some kind of games. As soon as we started talking about something seriously, these issues were drowned in the routine of meetings,” Trukhan said.
At the same time, he admitted that in 2009 Belarus still demonstrated massive support for the exercises with Russia, and in 2017 the authorities authorized a picket in front of the hotel where Russian military personnel lived.
Lukashenko leaked classified information to NATO without Russia's consent.