RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Russia is massing thousands of troops in its western neighbor, Belarus, ahead of what could be the opening of a new front aimed at disrupting Western army aid from Poland, according to defense officials in Latvia and Russia. Ukraine.
However, the assembled forces, around 10,000 troops, would possibly still be too weak to achieve a new advance south from Belarus, Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks said on Friday.
“We have to be careful, but I doubt that the Russians will open at this time any other front line against Ukraine, at least not a successful front,” Pabriks said in an interview in Riga, the capital of Latvia, which borders either Russia and Russia.
Last week’s announcement via Belarus that it would form a new joint military force with Russia alarmed the West that the Kremlin could prepare for a new ground attack with the help of Belarusian forces. Russia gathered troops in Belarus ahead of its initial attack on Ukraine in February. .
On Thursday, a Ukrainian general, Oleksiy Gromov, said the risk of an imaginable invasion of Belarus was growing. He said a new attack would likely not be directed towards Kyiv, which is only 60 miles from the Belarusian border, but rather west of the capital, closer to the Polish border. An offensive south of western Belarus on Ukrainian territory near the border with Poland could disrupt the flow of weapons to Ukraine from the US. The U. S. and its allies, many of whom pass through Poland.
Russia used the territory of Belarus, its army and closest political ally, as the setting for its February invasion and from there has introduced missiles and drones into Ukraine. worried about war.
On Friday, Lukashenko said it would not be desirable for the Belarusian army apparatus to be used in Ukraine and denied that his country’s troops were education for war, adding that “today there is no war. “The firm reported.
Lukashenko did something similar in February, just days before Russia invaded Ukraine from its territory.
On Friday, Ukraine’s armed forces said that if the country were attacked from Belarus, it would “respond as fiercely as we respond to all occupiers. “
The wave of army activity in Belarus in recent days, the British Defense Ministry said Friday, is “probably to demonstrate Russian-Belarusian solidarity and convince Ukraine to divert forces to protect the northern border. “
Pointing to Lukashenko’s claims that 70,000 Belarusians and 15,000 Russians were involved in their new joint force, the British Defense Ministry said Russia was unlikely to have deployed significant forces, adding that Belarus “maintains a minimum capability to adopt complex operations. “
Vadym Skibitsky, spokesman for Ukraine’s army intelligence agency, said in an interview that Ukraine also saw no immediate risk of attack from Belarus.
Several thousand newly mobilized Russian troops are deployed in Belarus at educational sites, Skibitsky said, but are not accompanied by tanks, artillery or fuel trucks and other logistical elements that would want to invade and confront battle-hardened Ukrainian troops.
“We see those elements moving now towards Belarus, but we don’t see the movement of the team,” he said.
Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, also downplayed the likelihood of a new Russian invasion from Belarus. “Lately we have no indication of any imminent military action on this front,” he said at a briefing on Thursday.