About 9,000 Russian Soldiers To Arrive In Belarus For Regional Grouping

The number of Russian soldiers to arrive in Belarus as part of the joint regional military group will be slightly less than 9,000, while the redeployment will take several days, a senior official of the Belarusian Defense Ministry said on Sunday.

On Monday, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that Minsk and Moscow agreed on deploying a joint military group "in connection with the aggravation of the situation on the western borders of the Union State."

"The first troop trains with Russian servicemen who are part of the RGF (Belarusian-Russian military regional grouping) began to arrive in Belarus.

The relocation will take several days. The total number will be a little less than 9 thousand people," Valery Revenko said on Twitter.

Revenko added that more details will be provided at a briefing for foreign military attachés on October 17.

The first trains with Russian solders arrived in Belarus on Saturday. On Sunday, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said that the air force part of the joint regional military group also began to arrive in Belarus from Russia.