Belarus again claimed that Ukraine is planning “armed provocations” with continued troop movements along their shared border, state media reported Friday.
Kyiv previously claimed Minsk, Russia’s close ally, was playing up tensions on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border to divert attention from Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory.
“Given the presence of Ukrainian armed formations in the border areas, there remains a high probability of armed provocations,” Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin was quoted as saying by the Belta news agency during a meeting with President Alexander Lukashenko.
Khrenin claimed Ukrainian forces were carrying out air reconnaissance of the border area, “including with attempts to violate the airspace of Belarus.”
“We are seeing the active movement of Ukrainian special forces and security services in areas along the state border of the Republic of Belarus,” he added, describing the situation in Belarus’ southern operational sector as “tense.”
During the meeting, Lukashenko said: “We have everything we need to repel probable dirty tricks (I don’t mean to say attacks or strikes) against Belarus.”
On Saturday, Khrenin said Lukashenko had ordered the reinforcement of Belarusian troops along its border with Ukraine in response to alleged airspace violations during the Kursk incursion.
Ukraine’s border service spokesman Andriy Demchenko denied seeing any Belarusian troop movements along their shared border at the time.
On Thursday, Demchenko reiterated that the Belarusian-Ukrainian border was “stable and fully controlled.”
Lukashenko allowed Russia to use Belarus as a staging ground for its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine but Belarusian troops have not taken direct part in hostilities.
