Belarus sent additional troops to strengthen its border with Ukraine, claiming Ukrainian drones violated its airspace during Kyiv’s military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.
The Belarusian Foreign Ministry summoned the Ukrainian chargé d’affaires and demanded that measures be taken to prevent such incidents from recurring.
It was pointed out…that if Ukraine’s diplomatic representation in Belarus cannot have an effect on preventing such provocations, the Belarusian side will raise the issue of the appropriateness of its continued presence in Minsk.
President Alexander Lukashenko stated that air defence forces on Friday destroyed several of “about a dozen” Ukrainian drones after they violated Belarusian airspace in the Mogilev region bordering Russia, according to Belarusian media.
I don’t understand why Ukraine had to do this. We have to look into it. But we have…made ourselves clear and conveyed to them that any provocation will not go unanswered.
However, Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation, accused Belarus that the build-up of arms deployments near the border was “an attempt to help Putin and divert the attention of Ukraine’s command to this sector.”
On Saturday, Russian troops reversed the situation in the Kursk region in their favour amid much misunderstanding of Ukraine’s actions by its allies. The countries consider an attack on one of Russia’s regions inexpedient, while Ukrainian military reserves are needed in the Donetsk region.
