Diplomacy
Putin submits security agreement with Belarus to the Duma

Russian President Vladimir Putin has submitted the agreement on security guarantees between Russia and Belarus to the Duma, the lower house of parliament, for ratification.
The agreement was signed on December 6, 2024. According to the resolution, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko will present the document.
The treaty contains an article stipulating that an armed attack on one of the parties will be recognized as an attack against it as a whole.
In this case, they will respond with all available force and means in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations (UN) Charter.
This article refers to the right of a state to use military force in self-defense in the event of an armed attack.
In order to prevent and repel acts of aggression, the agreement provides for the deployment of Russian military facilities and military units on Belarusian territory.
In addition, the treaty also contains articles on Russia’s nuclear weapons. Accordingly, nuclear weapons are recognized as an important element of preventing nuclear and non-nuclear military conflicts and as a means of deterrence whose use is a last resort.
They may also be used in the event of a nuclear attack on a state party, or in the event of an attack with conventional weapons against a state party that poses a critical threat to its sovereignty or territorial integrity.
If third states or international organizations impose ‘restrictive measures of an economic or other nature’ against Russia or Belarus, the parties will be able to collectively counter these measures, including with mutual support.
Viacheslav Sutyrin, Director of the Centre for Scientific Diplomacy and Promising Academic Initiatives at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, told Vedomosti that the agreement fixes a new geopolitical reality in the allied relations between Russia and Belarus.
The agreement provides for mutual obligations not only in the field of military threats, but also in the event of attacks on the constitutional order of the parties to the Union State, Sutyrin said. Russia and Belarus are therefore preparing to repel hybrid threats, both military and political.
Also important is the article on the use of nuclear weapons in response to military attacks with conventional weapons, which pose a critical threat to sovereignty.
The expert added that the ratification of the treaty fixes the long road that Russian Belarusian relations have traveled since 2020 and makes the countries better prepared to face new threats in Eastern Europe.
Aleksandr Nosovich, editor-in-chief of the RuBaltic.Ru analytical portal, said that the agreement should be perceived as a signal to NATO countries, and the clauses on Russian nuclear weapons deployed on Belarusian territory are a reminder that the overwhelming superiority of Western countries in conventional weapons is meaningless.
The nuclear factor devalues NATO’s superiority in conventional weapons, and the security guarantees agreement is a direct signal that in the event of an attack on Belarus, Russia will use nuclear weapons to defend it, Nosovich said.
It creates hope for the peaceful development of both Belarus and the north-west of Russia, primarily the Kaliningrad oblast.
Moreover, the political argument of this agreement is that the West, regardless of its attitude towards the Union State, is a full-fledged participant in the military-strategic sphere, so that an attack on one of the parties automatically means an attack on the other.