Alexander Lukashenko, President of Belarus, has given instructions to strengthen the grouping of troops on the Gomel and Mozyr tactical directions bordering Kyiv and Chernihiv regions of Ukraine.
BelTA quoted Belarus’s Minister of Defense, Viktor Khrenin, as saying this.
“The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces has given instructions to strengthen the grouping of troops on the Gomel and Mozyr tactical directions,” Khrenin said.
“We tasked military units of special operations forces, ground troops, and missile troops, including Polonez missile systems and Iskander systems, with marching to the designated areas.”
Earlier, Lukashenko said that “several targets” had been shot down over the country, which came from Ukraine.
“Yesterday (August 9 – ed.) at 18:10, the Belarusian Air Force and Air Defense Forces were put on high alert. We call it readiness No. 1. The Armed Forces of Ukraine violated all rules of conduct and violated the Republic of Belarus’ airspace. They approached us from the east, specifically in the Kostyukovichi district. Consequently, we placed the air defense forces on full combat alert to intercept the targets. There were about a dozen of them,” the Belarusian leader said.
Lukashenka said that on Friday at 19:04, at an altitude of one and a half kilometers, the air defense forces “destroyed several targets” over the territory of Belarus.
“We suspect that these are attack drones. They violated Belarus’ airspace and flew from Ukraine. We destroyed the targets over Belarusian territory. The rest were handed over (we share air defense with Russia) to the Russian Federation,” Lukashenko said.
Later, the state-run BELTA news agency, citing Belarus 1 TV channel, wrote that the wreckage had allegedly revealed “an electric motor, electronic components of NATO countries, an active multi-frequency antenna of American production, and a Belgian navigation system.”
On the other hand, Russian Shahed attack drones enter Belarusian airspace, fly over it, and then enter Ukrainian airspace to attack Ukrainian cities, as reported by local independent media and by the Ukrainian Air Force commander. The Belarusian air defense system and the Belarusian leader have not paid attention to this.
Ukraine and its Western allies accuse Belarus of aiding Russia in the war against Ukraine. Sanctions were imposed on Minsk. In June, the Council of the EU adopted sanctions against Belarus, “in view of the regime’s involvement in Russia’s illegal, unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine”.
