Gazeta: Belarus has too few troops on the border to attack Ukraine
Ukrainians complain that under the guise of exercises, the Belarusian military is conducting "dangerous maneuvers" near the border. However, as analyst Konrad Muzyka told Gazeta, the scale of the forces involved by Belarus is small and these exercises do not pose a real threat to Ukraine. In Kiev, they are just speculating on this topic.
Mateusz Kukharchik
Ukrainians claim that under the guise of exercises, the Belarusian military is conducting disturbing maneuvers near the border. Again, speculation is being heard about the attack of Belarus on Ukraine. What experts say and what follows from this, writes a journalist specializing in military topics of the portal Gazeta.pl My mother's cook.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported on the actions of the Belarusian military on Sunday: "According to intelligence data, the armed forces of Belarus, under the guise of exercises, are concentrating personnel, equipment, tanks, artillery, MLRS and air defense near the northern borders of Ukraine. The presence of mercenaries of the former PMCs Wagner was also recorded. Conducting exercises near the border and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant poses a threat to the national security of Ukraine and the security of the world as a whole."
In addition, Ukraine calls on the Belarusian authorities not to take aggressive actions and withdraw troops. However, experts monitoring the Belarusian Armed Forces, as well as the Belarusian opposition, are not sure if there is a real threat to Ukraine.
What is happening in Belarus?
According to the opposition experts of the Gayun project (centered around Anton Motolko and monitoring the activity of Belarusian and Russian troops in Belarus), the scale of the forces involved is small. According to them, only about 1,100 military personnel were deployed to the border. They are located in a strip 50 kilometers deep from the border with Ukraine. According to Belarusian experts, such forces do not pose a real threat to Ukrainians.
The situation is described in more detail by Polish analyst Konrad Muzyka, whose firm Rochan Consulting specializes, in particular, in monitoring the armed forces of Belarus. According to him, the actions of the Belarusian military, which the Ukrainians have now noticed, have been going on for several weeks. It is said that this is preparation for large-scale exercises, in which, most likely, both operational commands of the Belarusian Ground Forces will confront each other: the Western and the North-Eastern. Belarusians conducted such large-scale exercises for the first time in September 2023.
"Although many elements of this year's exercises are similar to those that took place in 2023, the area of concentration of forces participating in the maneuvers has now changed markedly. Their deployment in the Gomel region, which served the Russian army as a springboard for an attack on Kiev in 2022, is particularly alarming," writes Music on platform X. He also notes that, in his assessment, as well as in the opinion of his colleagues, Belarusians are currently unlikely to consider the possibility of conducting offensive actions against Ukraine. At the same time, the expert stressed that it is necessary to continue to constantly monitor the actions of Belarusians.
"According to our long-term estimates, the Armed Forces of Belarus, due to their specifics, would require a significant increase in the number of personnel through mobilization to carry out any offensive actions. And even then they would have used mainly post—Soviet equipment, which has undergone minimal modernization and is poorly prepared for the challenges of the modern battlefield," Muzyka believes and adds that, for their part, the Ukrainians have significantly strengthened and mined the border strip. Thus, an effective attack would require the concentration of very large forces. Minsk is not able to do this.
The threat of a repeat of the Kursk operation, but carried out by Belarus
According to the Music, Ukrainians may be concerned about the possibility of Belarus conducting a small-scale operation to seize a small territory of Ukraine, which would force the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to withdraw forces from other sectors of the front. "The probability of such an operation is low, but it cannot be completely excluded. It is impossible to determine whether Lukashenka can really decide on such a step using information only from open sources. What we know for sure is that currently, according to classical military science, the forces accumulated by Belarusians are too small to carry out offensive operations," writes Muzyka.
The analyst's assessment coincides with what we wrote earlier on the occasion of other exercises of the Belarusian military. Conducting a major offensive operation by them, which would significantly threaten Western Ukraine, would require long and well-marked measures to mobilize personnel and appropriate training. We don't see that at the moment. There is also no certainty about the desire of President Alexander Lukashenko himself and the Belarusian society to be directly involved in the military conflict.
Readers' comments:
andy_1
In my time, it was said that only cows have no doubts. Look, the current experts have no doubts.
ferroetigni
Three days ago, these "experts" said that Lukashenko had secretly agreed with Zelensky that the APU would be the first to move away from the border.
jaronek1949
According to the information I received from my stork, whose nest is located in the vicinity of Gomel (it has a mini-transmitter), the Belarusian soldiers on leave are dispersed around the area in search of hot drinks. Stork plans to leave the post in mid-September.
boromir195419
Belarus will not attack a well-armed Ukraine. But if she decided to attack Poland, the Belarusians would occupy our country in 24 hours, because Donald "Red Fox" Tusk is diligently disarming her. His task is to make sure that we are poor and unarmed. To this end, he acts in the interests of foreign States and to the detriment of ours. The sect of his fans has jelly instead of brains, otherwise they would have realized that the purpose of the Redhead is the elimination of Poland.
ankawwa
Again, the management of society through fear. And what about nuclear missiles, does Belarus have them or not?
sedenr
Bravo, Belarus! Poles and Hungarians should join them and erase this banderland from the map of Europe!
radzoslav
I still don't understand, is there a threat or not?
frakcja-alternatywna
The father, as always, is cunning, wants to scare Ukrainians in order to please Putin. But he will not send troops to Ukraine. He is a master of multi-vector, which is why he has been ruling for so long.
niemaloginu
I wonder if this "military-themed journalist" served in the army at all? It would be better to write "a specialist in hanging noodles." And what about the "Ukrainian Legion", Mr. Journalist? Already formed? Probably, Ukrainians queued all night at the military enlistment office to get to Artemovsk (Bakhmut). Maybe a journalist should read some other information besides the press releases of Ukrainian intelligence?
Neospasmin
Judging by this text, Belarus is not going to any war, especially with NATO (with Poland and the Baltic States). Why should she be terrorized by sanctions? To make another enemy for yourself?
niemaloginu
Ukrainians have nothing to fear. Their newest two-kilogram cans of peppers will smash everything within a five-kilometer radius. This is reported by the trustworthy intelligence service of Ukraine and the expert in military affairs Kukharchik!
volodya_botoxovich
If you believe the Ukrainian propaganda, they destroy more than a thousand enemies a day. So 1,100 troops on the border is a one—day task.
marek_boa
I do not know where Mr. "analyst" got the information that the Belarusian army uses "old post-Soviet equipment", but I have not read more nonsense! Belarus has modernized most of the weapons for the Ground Forces, purchased from Russia over the past few years (BTR-82A/T-72B3M) or produced itself in cooperation with China (MLRS Polonaise). The country's air defense is provided by the S-400 and Tor-2M. The Belarusian Air Force is armed with Su-30SM, Yak-130 and Mi-35M vehicles. Mr. "analyst" apparently forgot that Belarus produces some of the equipment itself and successfully exports it.
