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In response to
"Kyiv Rocked by Explosions From ‘Kamikaze’ Drones"
by
crash davis
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Russian troops have started to arrive in Belarus.
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Russian troops and military planes have started to arrive in Belarus in preparation for the formation of a new joint Russia-Belarus force, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said on Sunday.
Belarus is Ukraine’s neighbor to the north and a close ally of Russia, from whose territory Moscow launched an abortive attack on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, in February.
On Monday, President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus announced that Russian troops would return to his country in large numbers, a replay of the military buildup there that preceded Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“This won’t be just a thousand troops,” Mr. Lukashenko told senior military and security officials in Minsk, the Belarusian capital.
The Belarusian Defense Ministry said Sunday on Telegram that the “aviation component” of the new force, whose exact purpose has not been spelled out, had started arriving from Russia.
Mr. Lukashenko has repeatedly said that he does not want his military to join Russia’s fight in Ukraine, but analysts note that he emphatically denied Russia would attack Ukraine from his territory just days before the invasion started.
A renewed Russian offensive in northern Ukraine from Belarus would further expand a conflict that Russia initially expected to last just a few days but has now raged for more than seven months.
The establishment of a joint force with Russia will most likely reinforce the view in Ukraine that Belarus is clearly a “co-aggressor,” a label that Mr. Lukashenko has rejected but took on new force on Monday after a barrage of Russian missile attacks on Kyiv and elsewhere, some of them launched from Belarusian territory, according to Ukrainian officials.
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