If Russia proceeds with its threatened invasion of Ukraine, it is increasingly clear that Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s autocratic regime in neighboring Belarus will also need to be viewed as a full combatant in the war.
According to Belarusian media reports, the Russian troops that entered the country on January 17 ostensibly for military exercises scheduled to begin in February have begun taking up positions in the Homyel region near to Belarus’s southern border with Ukraine.
Moscow also continues to station an estimated 100,000 troops close to the Russian border with Ukraine and has announced a series of additional military drills across its territory, including in its western exclave of Kaliningrad, which borders Belarus as well as NATO members Lithuania and Poland.
The enhanced troop deployments in Belarus mean that Russia can now attack Ukraine from the east and southeast from Russia, from the south via the annexed Crimean peninsula, and from the north via Belarus.
In an interview with RFE/RL’s Current Time television, the director of the Kyiv-based Penta Center for Political Studies Volodymyr Fesenko said the deployment of Russian troops in Belarus “could be at minimum a way to blackmail Ukraine, or they may indeed be used for military action. The Russian authorities have started a very adventurous and tough game.”
And as Belarusian military analyst Yegor Lebyadok wrote on his Telegram channel, Moscow’s game carries very real risks for the Lukashenka regime. “If Belarus provides its territory for an attack on Ukraine, this will, according to international law, mean aggression against Ukraine,” he wrote. “Ukraine will be able to respond to this with missile strikes, the use of aviation, UAVs, and also send sabotage groups to Belarus,” he added.