Tel Aviv: The military cooperation agreement signed recently by Belarus and Pakistan raises grave concerns in the West.
“This agreement should raise heavy concerns in the West. Belarus is in fact an integral part of Russia and operates in full coordination with the Kremlin. The new agreement may expand to other issues. Pakistan is a nuclear capable country and this agreement with a country that is totally controlled by the Kremlin is a very bright red light to the west, especially when Putin proves his aggressive approach.”
This is the assessment of Arkady Mil- Man, a senior researcher and the Head of the Russia Program at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).
Mil-Man said that the West must follow very closely the combination of Russia – Belarus and Pakistan.
“It seems like a normal cooperation but is has a potential to affect international developments,” he added.
Dr Moredcahi Kedar, a senior expert on Islamic countries said that the agreement is part of a very clear move initiated by Russia to achieve coordination between the “anti-US countries like China, Iran, North Korea and South Africa. It looks that the new agreement between Belarus and Pakistan is part of this Russian led initiative.”
The signing of defence cooperation agreements and a military-to-military roadmap for 2025-27 was not widely mentioned in Pakistani press. Roznama Jang, Pakistan’s largest Urdu-language daily, in an editorial, noted, “The military cooperation agreement inked between Pakistan’s ministry of defence and the ministry of defence of Belarus is also significant. It will benefit both countries in multiple areas.”
According to a special report in the website of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko met in Minsk on April 11, 2025. The meeting, following Lukashenko’s visit to Pakistan in November 2024, took place about a year after the US State Department sanctioned a group of Belarusian and Chinese firms involved in supplying materials to Pakistan’s ballistic missile program.
The firms sanctioned by the US on April 19, 2024, include the Minsk Wheel Tractor Plant, a Belarus-based firm supplying special vehicle chassis that are used as launch support equipment for ballistic missiles by Pakistan’s National Development Complex (NDC). The NDC is responsible for the development of Missile Technology Control Regime Category (MTCR) I ballistic missiles.
In December 2024, then US Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer warned that the nuclear-armed Pakistan is developing long-range ballistic missile capabilities that could eventually allow it to strike targets well beyond South Asia, making it an “emerging threat” to the US.
Pakistan, he said, has pursued “increasingly sophisticated missile technology, from long-range ballistic missile systems to equipment, that would enable the testing of significantly larger rocket motors.”
On this occasion, the military cooperation agreement inked between Pakistan’s ministry of defence and the ministry of defence of Belarus is also of a significant importance. It will benefit both countries in multiple areas. Besides the 2025-2027 roadmap for military-technical cooperation between Belarus’s State Authority for Military Industry and Pakistan’s Ministry of Defence Production, an agreement on re-admission between the two countries was also finalised.
-The writer is an Israel-based freelance journalist. The views expressed are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
