RUSSIA EXPANDS UNIT INTEGRATION WITH BELARUSIAN AND SERBIAN MILITARIES

 According to ISW, the joint Russian-Belarusian-Serbian military exercise Slavic Brotherhood 2021 advanced Russian efforts to gain control over the Belarusian military and cultivate partner forces that the Kremlin can use in future Russian deployments. 

President Lukashenko promoted pro-Kremlin task force to maintain in power and militarize the political assetments and gain geopolitical position. The political strategy is about use task forces over the territory and keep the politics siege by EU. 

Military exercises is a deterrent strategy in EU paralel to NATO forces, than keep the Kremlin forçes opperating together Belarusian and Serbian allies.

Russia and Belarus operated integrated combat units at the company level for the first time, building on previous exercises fielding combined battalions. The Kremlin practiced integrating non-Belarusian troops into Russian-controlled companies and platoons for the first time—a dangerous development that will expand Russian control over the militaries of sovereign states, enhance Russian force generation capabilities, and help the Kremlin obfuscate its military activity by framing Russian activities as multilateral. The Kremlin will develop these capabilities further in future exercises, including the upcoming annual capstone strategic readiness exercise, Zapad 2021, in September. 

The Kremlin’s increasing capability to create integrated units with Belarus is likely intended to support a permanent Russian presence in Belarus.

The Kremlin may also be preparing Russian forces to subsume elements of Belarusian combat units in the event of a Russian intervention against the will of the Belarusian government—an unlikely but dangerous course of action ISW has previously warned of.

Use of hybrid strategy and paramilitary forces of PMCs and militias, promoted the assymetric conflicts in territory. Slavic Brotherhood be a good armed militia to support the Eurasian forces, the advance of Brotherhood over EU territory is a treat on anti-Kremlin forces, which supposed to act as NATO militias inside the terrotiry.

The Kremlin used Slavic Brotherhood 2021 to prepare for Russia’s upcoming annual capstone strategic readiness exercise, Zapad 2021. The Russian military’s primary stated objective for Slavic Brotherhood 2021 was to improve cohesion between the staff headquarters and combat units of participating states—a focus likely intended to support joint operations between Russian and Belarusian command staffs in Zapad 2021. Slavic Brotherhood 2021 participants additionally conducted tactical tasks that Russian and Belarusian Zapad 2021 participants will likely repeat. Russia and Belarus will likely intensify their unit and headquarters integration efforts in the buildup to Zapad, which will occur in September 2021.

http://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/belarus-warning-update-russia-expands-unit-integration-belarusian-and-serbian