Vladimir Putin is accelerating Russia’s defence pact with President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus in a warning to the West that they could be preparing or war.

On Friday the Russian President said that “Unprecedented political and social pressure from the so-called collective West is pushing us to speed up the unification process.”

Last week the Russian Defence Minister Sergie Shoigu warned that Moscow and Minsk must now take immediate action to get their troops combat ready and must urgently improve their defence capabilities, which is a warning they are preparing for war.

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On Friday Putin told a bilateral forum, “Together to minimise the damage from the illegal sanctions, to make it simpler to master the output of required products, to develop new competencies, to expand cooperation with friendly countries.”

In 1997 Russia and Belarus signed a Union Treaty to restore a close relationship which collapsed following the fall of the Soviet Union.

Lukashenko fell victim to Putin in 2020 when the Russia leader provided financial and political backing in a rigger presidential election.

Putin’s mission is to restore the former USSR and has placed around 30,000 troops in Belarus who “remain there indefinitely.”

This is all in effect “a de facto Russian takeover of Belarus” which is even more ominous than the war in Ukraine.

The Guardian reported, that the Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said, “Belarusian troops are receiving their commands now more and more from the Russian political decision-makers.

“That means there are low, very low, levels of independence in the Belarusian army.”

Military analyst Michael Kofman, director of Russian Studies at the CNA corporation previously warned, “We’re dealing with a defining moment in European security.”

Belarus has effectively surrendered to Russia 100-years after the Soviet Union was formed in 1922 and Minsk is now part of Putin’s new Russian empire.

Lithuania which borders Belarus has been warning for some months over Russia’s integration with Belarusian forces.

Speaking to the New York Times, Lt. Gen. Valdemaras Rupsys, Lithuania’s defense chief, warned, “We can no longer make a distinction between the Russian and Belarusian forces.

“Previously only air defenses and air surveillance systems were integrated, and now we observe a systemic integration and subordination of Belarusian forces to Russia.”