Belarus is a member of the Kremlin-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation, a military alliance of six post-Soviet states, shares joint air defense with Russia, and holds joint military drills. But there are limits. President Aleksander Lukashenko, unlike his counterpart Putin, did not sign the new 2018 Military Doctrine of the (admittedly largely dormant) Belarus-Russia Union State. Belarus has not joined any Russian military operation abroad — unlike Armenia, for example, it is not even part of the deployment in Syria. Nor has the regime in Minsk recognized South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Crimea as Russian territories.
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Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko salutes as he watches a military parade to mark the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, Minsk, May 9, 2020.
