RIGA, Latvia – Russia is massing thousands of troops into its western neighbor Belarus, raising fears that Moscow may have plans to open a new front in its war against Ukraine, but officials from Kyiv arrive Washington is casting doubt on whether the military buildup represents the seriousness of the threat.
With Russia already struggling to secure territory in eastern and southern Ukraine, it cannot afford to choose a new war on a third front north of the border, according to officials and analysts. with Belarus.
“We have to be cautious, but I doubt that the Russians at this point are capable of opening another front against Ukraine, at least not a successful one,” said Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks said on Friday. He said about 10,000 Kremlin forces are concentrated in Belarus, possibly to try to stem the flow of Western weapons from Poland into Ukraine.
Mr. Pabriks, whose country is a NATO member bordering both Belarus and Russia, said in an interview in Riga he would not be able to in February. Latvian capital. “In my view, they are too weak.”
The British Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence assessment on Friday that the massive military activity in Belarus “is likely an attempt to show Russian-Belarussian solidarity and persuade Ukraine to redirect forces to the border.” northern boundary”.
Some Western officials have suggested that Russia’s move may have been a training or spoof mission, while others said it could have been preparation for an attack, although it may not have been. is an overly effective attack, but their stance comes with a large dose of uncertainty.
Those who think a new attack is possible say that it probably won’t target Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine – where the Russians failed to capture Belarus at the outset of the invasion – but rather far to the west, near the border with Poland, to disrupt Western shipments of weapons and other supplies.
But plunging into western Ukraine near the Polish border would be “very, very risky” for both Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, the powerful leader of Belarus, and for the Kremlin as the region is “the heart of sovereignty” Ukrainian nationalism,” said Valery Kavaleuski, a former Belarusian diplomat and now a foreign affairs adviser to his country’s exiled opposition movement. “That would be suicide, a very bad idea but who knows what they might do,” he added.
Ukrainian forces, armed by the United States and others, have been involved in the offensive since early September, recapturing the ground that the Russians had taken at the beginning of the war. In the NATO alliance, which has closely watched the rise and fall of forces in Moscow, many officials suspect that President Vladimir Putin’s army, ravaged and demoralized after nearly eight months of war struggle, have the will or the means to open a new front.
On friday, yes Fierce fighting in Luhansk Province area in the east, and there are already signs that the Kremlin may give up parts of Kherson province in the south, which means surrendering to territory seized at the beginning of the war and which Mr. Putin declared last week part of the Russian Federation.
Also on Friday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and his Russian counterpart, Sergei K. Shoigu, spoke by phone for the first time since May and only the second time since since the war started. Their respective offices confirmed in statements that the call took place and dealt with Ukraine, but did not give any specifics or say whether Belarus was discussed.
Lukashenko, Belarus’s increasingly dependent president on Moscow, announced last week that his country and Russia were forming a new joint military force, with 70,000 Belarusian troops and 15,000 Russian troops, as a precaution against NATO.
A Ukrainian general, Oleksiy Gromov, said on Thursday that the threat of a possible invasion from Belarus was growing. However, Ukraine’s military intelligence service did not perceive the immediate danger, a spokesman, Vadym Skibitsky, said in an interview on Friday.
Skibitsky said that thousands of newly mobilized Russian troops are deployed to Belarus at training sites, but they are not accompanied by tanks, artillery or fuel trucks and other logistical support. they will need to infiltrate and face off against Ukraine’s battle-hardened armies.
“We see these elements moving into Belarus now, but we don’t see the movement of the equipment,” he said.
Putin used the territory of Belarus, his closest military and political ally, as the basis for the February invasion, and his forces launched missiles and drones into Ukraine. from that. But Mr. Lukashenko resisted Russian pressure to get more involved in the war.
But Michael R. Carpenter, the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Vienna, warned in a phone interview that Russia and Belarus both concealed the purpose of their new joint force in An opaque fog made it “difficult to say whether some kind of operation is being prepared from Belarus or if this is just an attempt to bring down the Ukrainian army”.
The British assessment said it was unlikely that Russia had actually deployed significant forces, and added that Belarus “maintains a minimal capacity to carry out a complex operation”.
Air Force Brigade. General Patrick S. Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, also downplayed the possibility of Russia invading Belarus: “We do not currently have any indication of an imminent potential military action on that front, ” he said at a press conference on Thursday.
Many Western and Ukrainian officials believe that Belarus’ main role will be to help Russia train new leaders, many of whom have no military experience, before sending them to Ukraine.
Russia’s own training facilities have been stretched dramatically since Putin last month ordered up to 300,000 troops to be deployed to support his faltering war effort. Several draft commissioners were sent to the front lines with minimal preparation; some were killed.
Mr. Lukashenko has held power for 28 years thanks to support from Moscow, while resisting Putin’s years-long push. unite their countriesending the independence of Belarus.
Mr. Pabriks, Latvia’s defense minister, said that Lukashenko had “switched everything to the left, moved everything to the right, pretending that he was working but it was clear that the Russian wave was working against him”.
“Lukashenko is trying to maneuver in an increasingly narrow space. It is clear that Putin is trying to get Belarus more involved in the war against Ukraine, but Lukashenko understands that it will be the end of his era if he does this,” Pabriks said.
Lukashenko added, has become so dependent on Russia for its political survival that “Russia controls its country and we should probably assume there will be more engagement on the part of Belarus against it. Ukrainians, but I highly doubt that this will be of great benefit to Russia. “
During a visit on Thursday to the western region of Brest, near the border with Poland, Lukashenko inspected Belarusian-made drones and other military equipment, claiming that the use of the equipment such in Ukraine is “unwanted”. Belta agency reported. He called the Ukrainians “our people”, echoing Putin’s quote that the people of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are a Slavic nation divided by Western conspiracies.
Lukashenko, according to Belta, also said that Belarusians had to ignore what he described as “wailing” about his government starting a secret maneuver, adding that the army needed to train “but there’s no war today. We don’t need one.”
He made the same statement in February just days before Russia invaded Ukraine from his territory.
On Friday, Ukraine’s armed forces said in a statement that if the country were attacked, they would “respond as fiercely as we respond to all occupiers.” It also says that, in the event that troops from Belarus are ordered to attack, they should disobey their leaders and surrender.
Report contributed by Andrew E. Kramer in Kyiv, Cassandra Vinograd in London and Tomas Dapkus in Vilnius, Lithuania.
