The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has called on Belarus to refrain from “unfriendly actions” and withdraw its troops from the border. This is stated in a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Komersant ukrainskyi
reports
The Foreign Ministry said that according to Ukrainian intelligence, the Belarusian armed forces are concentrating a significant number of personnel, including the Special Operations Forces, weapons and military equipment, including tanks, artillery, MLRS, air defence systems and engineering equipment, in the Gomel region under the guise of exercises. The presence of mercenaries of the former Wagner PMC was also recorded.
“Conducting exercises in the border area and in the immediate vicinity of the nuclear power facility, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, poses a threat to the national security of Ukraine and global security in general. We call on the officials of the Republic of Belarus not to make tragic mistakes for their own country under pressure from Moscow, and on its armed forces to stop hostile actions and withdraw their troops from the state border of Ukraine to a distance exceeding the range of the fire systems available in Belarus,” the ministry said on its website.
The ministry assured that Ukraine “has never taken and is not going to take any unfriendly actions against the Belarusian people” and stressed that if Minsk violates the Ukrainian border, our state “will take all necessary measures to implement the right to self-defence guaranteed by the UN Charter”.
“At the same time, all troop concentrations, military facilities and supply routes on the territory of Belarus will be legitimate targets for the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Centre for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine and an officer of the Defence Forces, wrote on his telegram channel in response to the Foreign Ministry’s statement that “as of now, all the ‘threats of an offensive from Belarus’ are purely informational, nothing more.”
