Мария Захарова. Скриншот видео
Russia believes that the West is attempting to pull Belarus away from the Russian Federation and does not intend to stand by idly. This was stated by Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova at a briefing on February 12, commenting on information released by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service.
Earlier, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service claimed that Western countries were allegedly attempting to destabilize the situation in Belarus, achieve a change in the constitutional system, and weaken ties between Minsk and Moscow.
According to Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry shares the assessments of the Foreign Intelligence Service and has no doubts about the seriousness of the threats.
“There is, of course, no reason to doubt the seriousness of the threats. You know that in 2020 Western, so to speak, regimes already attempted, through an extensive network of their agents of influence, to organize another color revolution in Belarus. But the determination of the authorities and the wisdom of the Belarusian people, who learned lessons from the Ukrainian Maidan, prevented this.
It is obvious that Western actors have not abandoned their aspirations to tear away, including by any means, the brotherly republic from Russia. They are apparently preparing for revenge and waiting for a convenient moment,” Zakharova said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson stated that a coup in Belarus would lead to a source of instability near Russia’s borders and positively assessed the “purge” of NGOs in Belarus.
“A hypothetical coup in Belarus and the coming to power there of Western agents would undoubtedly erase all the achievements of the integration building of our Union State with Belarus and create another hotspot of instability on our western borders.
As correctly noted in the information material you mentioned, Belarusian society has already received a kind of inoculation against attempts to destabilize the internal political situation. The republican authorities have also taken a number of decisive measures to purge the country of pro-Western so-called democratizing structures and to tighten legislation regarding non-governmental organizations in order to prevent their subversive activities from within,” Zakharova said.
Zakharova stressed that Russia and Belarus “do not intend to simply sit back and watch all this.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson recalled the close cooperation between the security councils and special services of Belarus and Russia, as well as the adopted Union State security concept and the treaty on security guarantees.
“The treaty sets out a broad range of mutual allied obligations to ensure defense, protect the sovereignty, independence, constitutional order of Russia and Belarus, territorial integrity, inviolability of territories and external borders of the Union State, with the involvement of all available forces and means, including nuclear weapons, in accordance with the fundamentals of the state policy of the Russian Federation in the field of nuclear deterrence approved on November 19, 2024,” Zakharova said.
She also announced a second meeting of special representatives of Belarus and Russia on the implementation of the security guarantees treaty. The meeting will take place in Minsk in March. It is planned to consider a “broad range of external and internal security threats” to the two countries and to determine “joint steps to neutralize and prevent them.”