The Belarusian ruler Alexandr Lukashenko has announced extensive deliveries of "state-of-the-art armaments" from Russia.

Belarus expects "dozens of airplanes, dozens of helicopters" and anti-aircraft systems, "maybe even" of the modern type S-400, in the near future.

“We need them very much,” Lukashenko affirmed on Wednesday.

Friedrich Schmidt

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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On Friday next week, the major maneuver Sapad-2021 (West 2021), which Russia and Belarus are jointly organizing, is to begin on military training areas in both countries;

it was last held four years ago.

Against fears in NATO and in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Lukashenko said: "We have no plans to attack anyone." to cut off the EU are pointless.

“Nobody needs the Baltic States,” said Lukashenko.

Judgment against Kolesnikova expected

Before the presidential election in August last year, the Minsk ruler had suggested a Russian threat to his country.

During the crackdown on the anti-fraud protests, however, he began to outline a threat from NATO that would advance to Russia via Belarus.

A verdict is expected on Monday in one of the most important of the numerous trials against opponents of the regime in Belarus: Marija Kolesnikova, a colleague of the presidential candidate Viktor Babariko, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison in July, and the lawyer Maxim Snak face up to twelve years imprisonment for one “Secret criminal conspiracy with the aim of seizing state power in an unconstitutional way”, so the formula of the General Prosecutor's Office.

The trial had taken place since the beginning of August, but because of secrecy behind closed doors; the pronouncement of the verdict is to be the only public part of the process.