Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said today that Ukraine has deployed more than 120,000 troops along its border with Belarus and that Minsk has deployed almost a third of its armed forces along the border, the state-run Belta news agency reported.
He did not say exactly how many troops have been deployed. Belarus’ professional army numbers about 48,000 soldiers and about 12,000 troops on the state border, according to the 2022 Military Balance report of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
“Seeing their aggressive policy, we have presented there and placed in certain places – in case of war, it will be defense – our army along the entire border,” Lukashenko said, according to Belta, in an interview on Russian state television.
No comment from Kyiv
Kyiv did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Yesterday, Saturday, Kiev said it had seen no signs of Belarusian troops gathering at the border.
The Belarusian leader, a staunch ally of Vladimir Putin, was speaking against the backdrop of an invasion of Russia by Ukrainian troops that began on August 6, when thousands of Kiev troops crossed Russia’s western border in a major blow to Putin’s military leadership.
Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said on Friday that there was a high possibility of an armed provocation from neighboring Ukraine and that the situation on the border between the two countries “remains tense”.
Lukashenko said the Belarus-Ukraine border was mined “like never before” and that Ukrainian troops would suffer huge casualties if they tried to cross it.
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