2024-08-28 09:42:29
Despite warnings from Ukraine, Belarus is moving troops, tanks and air defense systems to the border between the two states. The troops are also near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which is located sixteen kilometers from the Belarusian border.
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko claims that this is an exercise and that the Ukrainian army has 120,000 soldiers at the border, so Kiev has nothing to warn and threaten. Although similar reinforcements of troops at the border have already taken place several times since the beginning of Russian aggression on February 24, 2022, this time, according to Ukrainian commentators, it is different.
There are more Belarusian soldiers in the area than in the past, and among them are members of the former Russian mercenary Wagner Group, commanded by Yevgeny Prigozhin. The second “news” is that some Belarusian vehicles have the letter B on them. It may not mean anything important, but the fact is that the Russians had the letters Z or V on their transporters and tanks during the invasion of Ukraine. To better identify each other.
“Military exercises in the border zone and in close proximity to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant pose a threat to the security of Ukraine. If necessary, we will use the right to self-defense in accordance with the United Nations Charter, and all troop concentrations, military facilities and supply routes on the territory of Belarus will be a legitimate target for the Ukrainian armed forces,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
In the first days of the invasion, the Russians occupied the Chernobyl power plant and its surroundings, but they withdrew after a few weeks. Lukashenko gave the Russians Belarusian territory and airfields to invade Ukraine, on February 24, 2022, Russian tanks crossed the border into Ukraine’s Chernihiv region, north of Kyiv.
It was the possibility of using Belarusian territory that allowed the Russians to threaten Kiev, without which they would not have reached the Ukrainian capital. However, the Belarusian army has not yet become directly involved in the war, although there are repeated reports that Putin is trying to push Lukashenko to do so.
In its analysis, the American Institute for the Study of War states that Lukashenko does not appear to be planning to send Belarusian ground troops to Ukraine, but the maneuvers at the border are intended to tie up Ukrainian forces so that he cannot be deployed against the Russians on the front lines.
Video: We will clear Kursk by October, the Kremlin threatens. Romantsov described what Russia might encounter (August 28, 2024)
Spotlight Aktuálně.cz – Michael Romancov | Video: Team Spotlight