The Ministry of Defense of Belarus assessed the situation as a crisis due to "direct threats" to the country Ukraine has concentrated a significant grouping of troops on the border with Belarus, said Colonel Valery Revenko, Assistant Minister of Defense of the Republic of Belarus.
According to him, the armed conflict in Ukraine has significantly aggravated the situation on the southern border of the country. The Ministry of Defense of the Republic also described the situation around Belarus as a crisis and explained this assessment by an increase in NATO's military presence in Europe.
The Ministry of Defense of Belarus stated that they found a large grouping of the Ukrainian army on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border.
- said the assistant to the head of the Department for International Military Cooperation, Colonel Valery Revenko.
According to him, the armed conflict in Ukraine "significantly aggravated the situation" on the southern border of the country. The Defense Ministry indicated that the Ukrainian military continues intelligence activities against Belarus, including using drones that "periodically" violate the country's airspace.
The representative of the Defense Ministry also called the high probability of armed provocations and border incidents. He added that if earlier the Belarusian military only recorded provocations, now they have begun to respond to them.
"It depends on our endurance whether the armed conflict in Ukraine will remain within the current framework or become more widespread," the representative of the Ministry of Defense stressed.
Direct security threats
Revenko said that the Ministry of Defense assesses the situation around Belarus as a crisis, and there are direct threats to the country's military security.
The Ministry of Defense of the Republic believes that NATO can create strike groups in the Belarusian direction.
"In fact, conditions have been formed under which strike groups of troops can be created on the basis of already deployed military units and units of the United Armed Forces of NATO in the shortest possible time," Revenko said.
He recalled that "more than 60 thousand US troops equipped with modern strike weapons are permanently stationed in Europe, as well as about 34 thousand NATO soldiers" who are there as part of strengthening the eastern flank of the alliance. At the same time, more than 22 thousand military personnel are stationed in Poland and the Baltic states.
President of the country Alexander Lukashenko said on February 16 that the Belarusian army is ready to start fighting together with the Russian one if "at least one soldier" comes to Belarus from the territory of Ukraine. According to him, in case of aggression by the Ukrainian army, "the response will be the most severe" and "the war will acquire a completely different character."
At the same time, he recalled that Russia is an ally of Belarus, the countries have a joint military grouping, but Moscow has never asked that "Belarus start a war against Ukraine." Lukashenko also said that Minsk does not plan to declare mobilization while nothing threatens the country.
Ukraine has repeatedly stated about the possible preparation of an attack from the Belarusian direction. In Minsk, these allegations were refuted. On February 17, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, said that he considered the participation of Belarusian troops in the conflict in Ukraine unlikely, since "Belarusian soldiers do not want to fight against Ukraine."
The next day, the commander of the joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Sergei Naev, reported an increase in the densities of minefields along the border with Belarus tenfold. He also spoke about the creation of a system of engineering barriers and a system of defensive lines along the northern border.
Alice Andreeva
