Russian troops stay longer in Belarus for military exercises in the neighbouring country. The Ministry of Defense in Minsk announced the decision to do so due to increased military activity along their shared border and the heightened tensions in eastern Ukraine.
The joint exercises north of Ukraine, for which an estimated 30,000 Russian soldiers are in Belarus, are due to end on Sunday. Russia previously said it would withdraw its troops after the large-scale exercises.
Shelling from separatists and the Ukrainian army in the eastern Donbas region has increased in recent days. In the West, there are fears that Russia is using this to justify an attack on Ukraine.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was in Moscow this weekend with his counterpart Vladimir Putin, where both heads of state-supervised tests with, among other things, hypersonic missiles, which Moscow says were successful.
