"Lukashenko Heard That"

A Ukrainian officer assessed the possibility of an attack from Belarusian territory.

Deputy Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, Major General Vadym Skibitsky stated that following the new mobilization, Russia will be able to form a strike force and attempt to launch a new offensive against the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions as early as this winter, including by using Belarusian territory.

How realistic is such a scenario? The website Charter97.org spoke with military expert and reserve major of the Ukrainian National Guard Oleksiy Hetman:

— From my point of view, as well as from the perspective of other military personnel or those who served until recently, the likelihood of an invasion from Belarusian territory and the participation of the Belarusian army in it is still quite low, given the logic behind Lukashenko’s behavior.

He will continue to claim that Belarus and Russia are the closest of friends and allies. But in reality, Lukashenko will do his utmost to avoid sending Belarusian troops into Ukrainian territory. Because then UN General Assembly Resolution No. 3314 (XXIX) would immediately come into force, which clearly defines what constitutes aggression. The UN Charter and the norms of international law would take effect, including a country’s right to self-defense in the event of aggression. That is, the right to strike the aggressor’s territory, as well as its military and industrial targets. Of course, this does not apply to civilian targets. A deliberate attack on civilian objects is a war crime. We do not do that.

The commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Unmanned Systems Forces Robert “Madyar” Brovdi officially spoke of 500 targets on Belarusian territory. Lukashenko heard this. We can destroy these 500 targets in a week at most. It is unlikely that Belarus has air defense systems capable of effectively countering our drones and missiles. Especially since the distance from our borders to any target in Belarus is much shorter than to targets on the territory of the Russian Federation.

Therefore, the probability of such an invasion exists, but I assess it as fairly low. However, the likelihood of an attack from the Bryansk region is significantly higher. Most likely, this would be more of a provocative act—an attempt to force our Armed Forces to redeploy some of their troops there and thus stretch our defensive line. We have already calculated that this direction would require the deployment of an additional corps or at least seven to eight brigades.

For now, we’re talking about what might happen in three or four months. But making long-term predictions during a war like this is very difficult. The situation changes rapidly, and the logic of the war itself is changing. A lot of new equipment and weapons are appearing that didn’t play such an important role even a year ago.

Let’s recall just how important artillery was two years ago. We used to count the number of artillery rounds fired by our side and by the Russians, and compare those figures. Nowadays, there’s much less talk about artillery. Of course, it’s still involved in combat operations, but the focus on it has shifted. The same can be said about tanks. We no longer discuss as often which side has more of them or whose vehicles are better. Now the main focus has shifted to unmanned and robotic systems, primarily drones.

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