FALCON POWERS – The official Belta news agency quoted Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko as saying on Sunday that Ukraine has deployed more than 120,000 soldiers on its borders with Belarus, and that Minsk has deployed about a third of its armed forces along the entire border.
Lukashenko did not disclose a specific number of his country’s forces on the border. Data from the 2022 Military Balance report published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies shows that the Belarusian army has about 48,000 soldiers and around 12,000 border guards. Belta quoted Lukashenko as saying in an interview with Russian state television: “Given what we have seen of their aggressive policies, we have sent (our forces) and concentrated them at specific points, in anticipation of war, for defense. Our army is along the entire border.”
Kyiv has not yet responded to a Reuters request for comment. Kyiv said on Saturday that it had not seen any signs of a mobilization of Belarusian forces on the border.
Lukashenko’s statements, the staunch ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, came as Kyiv was carrying out an incursion into Russia that began on August 6th, when thousands of Ukrainian soldiers breached Russia’s western border in a major embarrassment for the Russian military leadership.
Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said on Friday that the risk of provocation with weapons from Ukraine is high, and that the situation on the common border between the two countries “remains tense.”
Lukashenko mentioned that the Ukrainian-Belarusian border is “more mined than ever” and that Ukrainian forces will suffer heavy losses if they try to cross it.
