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The United States and its allies downplay the risks posed by the deployment of thousands of Russian troops in Belarus, intelligence tests come with a dose of uncertainty.
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By Andrew Higgins
RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Russia is massing thousands of troops in its western neighbor, Belarus, raising fears that Moscow is opening a new front in its war against Ukraine, but Kyiv officials in Washington doubt the army surge poses a serious threat.
While Russia already struggles to protect its territory in eastern and southern Ukraine, it cannot engage in new combat on a third front in the north, on the border with Belarus, according to officials and analysts.
“We have to be careful, but I doubt that the Russians can at this time open any other front line against Ukraine, at least not a successful front,” Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks said Friday. He said some 10,000 Kremlin troops were collecting in Belarus, most likely in an attempt to disrupt the shipment of Western weapons to Ukraine from Poland.
“They could disrupt something, but it wouldn’t be like February” at the start of the attack by the Russian army, M. Pabriks, whose country is a NATO member, borders Belarus and Russia, in an interview in Riga, the capital of Latvia. “In my opinion, they are too weak now. “
The British Defense Ministry said in an intelligence assessment Friday that the wave of army activity in Belarus is “probably to demonstrate Russian-Belarusian solidarity and convince Ukraine to divert forces to protect the northern border. “
Some Western officials say the Russian resolution is likely just a feint or an educational mission, while others say it may just be preparation for an attack, though probably not very effective, but its prospects come with a heavy dose of uncertainty.
Those who believe a new offensive is imaginable say it would probably not target Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, which the Russians failed to capture with an advance of Belarus at the beginning of the invasion, but to the west, near the Polish border, to disrupt Western deliveries of weapons and other supplies.
But diving into western Ukraine near the Polish border would be “very, very risky” for both Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, the strongman of Belarus, and the Kremlin because the region is the “traditional center of Ukrainian nationalism,” Valery Kavaleuski said. . , a former Belarusian diplomat and now foreign affairs adviser to his country’s opposition movement in exile. “It would be suicidal, a very bad concept but who knows what they do,” he added.
Ukrainian forces, armed through the United States and others, have been on the offensive since early September, retaking the ground the Russians occupied at the start of the war. Within NATO, which has closely followed the ebb and flow of Moscow’s forces, many officials doubt that President Vladimir V’s army. Putin, beaten and demoralized by almost 8 months of war, has the will or the means to open a new front.
On Friday, there was heavy fighting in Luhansk province in the east, and there were signs that the Kremlin could leave parts of Kherson province in the south, which would mean the seizure of territory at the beginning of the war and which Mr. Putin last week declared a component of the Russian Federation.
Also on Friday, the U. S. Secretary of DefenseU. S. Lloyd J. Austin III and his Russian counterpart, Sergei K. Shoigu, they spoke by phone for the first time since May and the time since the war began. Their respective offices showed in statements that the call took a position and involved Ukraine, but did not give main points or specify whether Belarus had been discussed.
Lukashenko, the Belarusian president dependent on Moscow, announced last week that his country and Russia were forming a new joint military force, with 70,000 Belarusian troops and up to 15,000 Russians, supposedly to protect NATO opponents.
A Ukrainian general, Oleksiy Gromov, said Thursday that the risk of an imaginable invasion of Belarus was growing. But Ukraine’s army intelligence firm sees no immediate danger, spokesman Vadym Skibitsky said in an interview Friday.
Several thousand newly mobilized Russian troops are deployed in Belarus at educational sites, Mr. Skibitsky, but they are not accompanied by tanks, artillery or tankers and other logistical elements that would like 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.
Putin used the territory of Belarus, his closest army and political ally, as the stage for his February invasion and his forces have since smuggled missiles and drones into Ukraine from there. But Lukashenko resisted Russian pressure to get more out of the war.
But Michael R. Carpenter, the U. S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Vienna, warned in a telephone interview that Russia and Belarus had shrouded the purpose of their new joint force in an opaque fog that makes it “difficult. “”to say if there is some kind of operation prepared from Belarus or if it is just an attempt to corral Ukrainian troops.
The British assessment said Russia was unlikely to have deployed significant forces, adding that Belarus “maintains a minimum capability to adopt a complex operation. “
Air Force Brigadier General Patrick S. Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, also downplayed the likelihood of a Russian invasion from Belarus: “Lately we have no indication of any imminent military action on this front,” he said at a briefing on Thursday.
The main role of many Western and Ukrainian officials in Belarus will be to help Russia exercise new recruits, many of whom have no military experience, before sending them to Ukraine.
Russia’s education services have been affected since Putin last month ordered the recruitment of 300,000 troops for his failed war effort. Some recruits were sent to the front with minimal preparation; Some have already been killed.
Lukashenko maintained strength for 28 years thanks to Moscow’s support, while completing a year-long push by Lukashenko. Putin to, in effect, merge their countries, ending with the independence of Belarus.
Mr. Pabriks, Latvia’s Defense Minister, said Mr. Pabriks. Lukashenko “moved things to the left, moved things to the right, pretending he was doing things, but clearly the Russian tide opposes him. “
“Lukashenko is looking to maneuver in a tight space. Obviously, Putin is looking to involve Belarus more in its war against Ukraine, but Lukashenko understands that it would be the end of his time if he did,” Putin said. Pabriks.
Lukashenko, he added, was so dependent on Russia for his own political survival that “Russia controls its country and we deserve to assume probably that there will be more participation on the Belarusian side opposed to the Ukrainians, but I doubt very much that this will happen. “bring wonderful benefits to Russia.
Visiting the western region of Brest near the Polish border on Thursday, M. Lukashenko inspected drones and other military apparatus made in Belarus and said it would be “undesirable” for such devices to be used in Ukraine, according to the state statement. The firm reported Belta. Se referred to Ukrainians as “our people,” echoing Mr. Ukrainians’ line. Putin that the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are a Slavic country divided into the machi-countries of the West.
Lukashenko, according to Belta, also said Belarusians will have to forget about what he described as “whining” about the launch of a clandestine mobilization campaign by his government, adding that it was mandatory for troops to exercise “but no war today. “that.
It did something similar in February, just days before Russia invaded Ukraine from its territory.
On Friday, Ukraine’s armed forces said in a statement that if the country were attacked, it would “respond as fiercely as we respond to all occupiers. “leaders and surrender.
The report provided by Andrew E. Kramer in Kyiv, Cassandra Vinograd in London and Tomas Dapkus in Vilnius, Lithuania.
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