The situation around Belarus is critical and implies the presence of direct threats to military security, Colonel Valery Revenko, Assistant Minister of Defense for International Military Cooperation, said during a briefing for foreign military attachés.

"First of all, these threats are connected with the accelerated large-scale militarization of the European continent and progressive build-up of the foreign military presence near our borders," he specified.

According to Revenko, NATO can create strike groups in the direction of Belarus. The representative of the Belarusian defense ministry emphasizes that there are currently over 60,000 U.S. troops permanently stationed in Europe equipped with modern strike weapons, as well as about 34,000 soldiers of NATO, 22,000 of which are located in Poland and the Baltic countries.

Revenko added that in this connection Minsk moved to respond to "attempts of provocations on the Ukrainian border."

According to him, Minsk switched to an adequate response to attempts of provocations on the Ukrainian border.

"The likelihood of armed provocations that can escalate into border incidents has been high for a long time," he concluded.