The number of Russian soldiers in Belarus has sharply decreased

The number of Russian military personnel in Belarus has significantly decreased over the past two months. In particular, the Russian contingent of the so-called Regional group of troops of the Union state, deployed last year, has been withdrawn from the country. This is reported by the monitoring project “Belarusian Hayun”. The messages are confirmed by the state border service of Ukraine.

“We can state that in July-August there was a significant decrease in the number of Russian military personnel stationed in Belarus,” writes “Belorussky Gayun”. It is noted that the field camps at the “Obuz-Lesnovsky”, “Lepelsky” and “Osypovichsky” ranges were liquidated, and the military personnel who were there went to Russia, “and this was not a rotation.”

According to Kyiv, up to 11,000 Russian servicemen were in the country a few months ago. Now there are no more than 2,000 Russian soldiers left there. “Belorussky Gayun” claims that up to 600 people are stationed at the Mozyr and Zyabrovka airfields, and up to 1,450 at the communication hubs in Baranovichi and Vyleyke. In addition, about 100 people are participating in CSTO exercises. All these military personnel are not part of the Regional Group of Forces, that is, the number of Russian military personnel stationed in Belarus has decreased to zero. There are no official comments from the Ministry of Defense of the two countries.

As “Belorussky Gayun” notes, the dismantling of tents in the field camp of PMC “Wagner” mercenaries in the village of Cel is also ongoing. They are already 55% less than at the end of July. Techniques in the camp, however, do not become less. According to observers’ estimations, about 4,000 mercenaries may remain in Belarus. It was almost never recorded that any of them were moved around the country after the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The Belarusian military does not participate in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the regime of Alexander Lukashenko provides logistical and technical support to Russia. In Kyiv, they have repeatedly emphasized that they do not see an actual threat of an invasion of Ukraine from the side of Belarus, even despite the deployment of the Russian contingent in this country. It is not clear what the recent withdrawal of most of the Russian troops from Belarus is connected with.