This is the first incident of this type reported by Minsk since the beginning of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, more than 10 months ago and while Belarus serves as a rear base for Russian forces with nearly 10,000 men. Belarus first said that a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile crashed on its soil before claiming that the missile was shot down in the morning by its air defense systems near the village of Gorbakha, in the Brest region. (southwest), bordering Ukraine, according to the Ministry of Defense.
“During verifications, it was preliminary established that the debris belonged to an S-300 anti-aircraft missile launched from Ukrainian territory,” the statement said. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was “immediately informed of the incident”. A Telegram account close to the authorities, picked up by the state news agency Belta, broadcast photos of fragments in a field.
kyiv was quick to react officially, citing a possible “provocation” on the part of Moscow to drag Belarus into its war.
“The Ukrainian side does not exclude a deliberate provocation by the Russian terrorist state, which has laid out such a route for its cruise missiles in order to provoke their interception in the airspace above the territory of Belarus,” it said. the Ukrainian Defense Ministry in a statement. kyiv also said it was “ready to conduct an objective investigation in Ukraine into the incident that occurred on December 29 in the sky above the territory of Belarus”, added the ministry, specifying that it wanted to cooperate with international “experts” including “the States are not associated with the support” of Russia.
Ukrainian ambassador summoned
Earlier Thursday, Minsk had summoned the Ukrainian ambassador to Minsk and said it wanted to “immediately carry out a thorough investigation into the circumstances of the firing of this missile, punish those responsible and take comprehensive measures to prevent such incidents in the future, which could have catastrophic consequences”.
Already in November, the fall of a missile on a Polish village, which had killed two people, had raised fears that NATO was drawn into the conflict, Poland being protected by a commitment of collective defense of the Atlantic Alliance . After investigation, according to the West and Moscow, the missile in question came a priori from a Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense system that had deviated from its trajectory. Tensions then subsided.