It turns out that Russia isn’t the only country massing troops on Ukraine’s border.
In addition to the large Russian buildup that has gotten the world’s attention in recent weeks, reports surfaced earlier this month that Belarus was also deploying forces and military hardware to its Ukrainian frontier in a manner that appears to be coordinated with Moscow’s actions.
Julian Ropcke, a reporter with the German mass-circulation daily Bild, has been meticulously tracking how Russia has been moving large amounts of troops to the Ukrainian border and augmenting its already robust force posture in Ukraine’s annexed Crimean peninsula.
On April 1, Ropcke tweeted out photos of BTR-80 armored vehicles, military trucks, and other large Belarusian military hardware traveling south through Belarus approximately 60 kilometers from the country’s border with Ukraine.