TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Belarus has sent aircraft and air defense forces to its border with Ukraine, a day after President Alexander Lukashenko announced he would station nearly a third of the country’s military along the frontier.
The Belarusian military has also deployed anti-aircraft missiles and soldiers from the country’s radiotechnical corps, Major General Andrey Lukyanovich, commander of the Belarusian Air Defense Forces, said on national television, describing the move as a significant increase.
Belarus’ authoritarian leader Lukashenko announced Sunday that he had sent nearly a third of his army to the border with Ukraine. Although he did not specify troop numbers, Belarus’ army numbers around 60,000.
Lukashenko said the decision was in response to the deployment of additional Ukrainian troops along the border, but this could not be independently verified.
Ukraine has not yet confirmed the Belarusian deployment on the 1,084-kilometer-long shared border.
Russia has used Belarus — which relies on Russian loans and cheap energy — as a base for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, moving troops through Belarusian territory to attack Ukraine from the north. Russia also moved some of its tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus in 2023.
Lukashenko also called for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine on Sunday, but said Kiev’s ongoing incursion into Russia’s Kursk region was preventing talks. He described the “escalation” as an attempt to provoke Moscow.
