Covered at the edge of a wood soaked by continuous rain, the Ukrainian border guard scans the northern horizon with his monocular. The Senkivka border crossing is very close. It forms a Y: Belarus to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south. It was from there that on the first day of the invasion by the forces of Moscow, the 90th Russian armored division rushed like butter into this part of Ukrainian territory.
Since then, the Ukrainians have been watching like milk on fire the area of Senkivka and the nearly 900 km of border with its Belarusian neighbor, whose territory served as a rear base for Russian soldiers. On October 20, the Ukrainian army was alarmed by the “growing threat” of a new Russian offensive from this northern neighbor, an ally of Moscow. Belarus had just announced the deployment on its territory of a new joint force with Russia, counting up to 9,000 Russian soldiers and around 170 tanks.