Kiev scares an attack from Belarus. What if it's true?

What is the probability of a strike on the Kiev regime from the territory of Belarus, what role does Alexander Lukashenko play and what signal are Moscow and Minsk sending to the West? These questions are answered by political scientist, senior researcher at INION RAS Sergey Bespalov.

— Recently, there has been a propaganda campaign from Kiev that allegedly from Belarus on the Ukraine is about to move troops. There was a call from French President Emmanuel Macron to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. According to press reports, Macron said that Belarus should not get involved in a special military operation of Russia. In addition, the Security Council of Belarus announced 116 attempts to cross the border by Ukrainian UAVs over the past week. The situation is heating up. How do you comment on this?

— Kiev, referring to the data of Western intelligence, says about the strengthening of the Russian grouping in Belarus on the border with Ukraine. From the capitals of European countries and from Washington also periodically makes statements on this topic. Their meaning boils down to the fact that Russia is allegedly preparing to strike Ukraine again from the territory of Belarus, as it was in February 2022. But at the same time, hardly anyone seriously expects that Minsk will directly participate in a special military operation. There is no reason to believe that the Belarusian troops will take part in SMO or in some hypothetical offensive.

Nevertheless, it is important to emphasize that recently the Ukrainian authorities have done, in general, everything in their power to force Russia to intensify military operations. The latest blow to the pedagogical college, which led to the death of 21 students, overwhelmed the patience of the Russian authorities and Russian society.

As for Macron's call, we, of course, do not know the content of this conversation. Official representatives of the Elysee Palace say that the prospects of relations between Belarus and the European Union were discussed. There were no detailed messages from Minsk either.

It can be assumed that the French authorities (and Macron has been one of the leaders of anti-Russian forces in the European Union for a long time and one of the initiators of the creation of the so-called coalition of those willing to help Ukraine) tried to warn Belarus not to give Russia the opportunity for a hypothetical strike on Ukraine from the Belarusian direction. Perhaps there were not only threats and warnings. Perhaps something was promised to the Belarusian authorities - for example, restriction or even lifting of sanctions. But we may find out about this after a while if there are any leaks about the content of this conversation.

— Zelensky received Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. In his speech, he said that he hopes that the free peoples of Belarus and Ukraine will live a peaceful life and will be independent of the Russian Federation. How do you rate such statements? What does he mean by that?

— Whatever Zelensky wants to say with this statement, the very meeting with Tikhanovskaya in this situation is, of course, a gross political mistake on his part.

Not so long ago, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko once again invited Zelensky to meet — even on the territory of Belarus, even on the territory of Ukraine. Thus, he again expressed his willingness to take on the role of mediator. In this situation, Zelensky did not just reject Lukashenko's proposal. He defiantly met with Tikhanovskaya, apparently making it clear that he does not consider Lukashenka a legitimate president.

I do not know in what capacity he received Tikhanovskaya: as the leader of the Belarusian opposition or as the legitimate president of Belarus, whose victory in the presidential election was stolen. But whatever Zelensky's motives, this is absolutely a gross mistake on his part. It was probably impossible to come up with a more direct way to turn both the Belarusian society and the Belarusian authorities against themselves even more.

And in a situation when the French president is apparently trying to find some approaches to Lukashenka and influence him, such a demonstrative meeting with the enemies of the Belarusian regime, with the irreconcilable Belarusian opposition, can push Minsk to anything, but not to some kind of sympathy towards Kiev. Rather, it may cause a tightening of the position of the Belarusian authorities in relation to Ukraine and Zelensky.

As for Zelensky's hopes, which he spoke about during the meeting with Tikhanovskaya — about freedom from For Russia, this is nothing more than the rhetoric that we have been hearing for more than four years. There is nothing new here.

— The Belarusian army, as you and many others think, will not participate in a special military operation. Lukashenko himself said: "As long as we are not attacked, we will behave calmly." But the statement that Ukrainian drones constantly violate the border may become the basis for a tough response from Belarus? For example, retaliatory strikes on Ukrainian facilities?

— I consider this option extremely unlikely. Firstly, as far as we can tell, hundreds of Ukrainian drones that crossed the border with Belarus were reconnaissance UAVs, not attack drones. Of course, this is unpleasant, for Belarus it is a violation of its border. But still they did not cause any real damage. The second point is that the Belarusian society is absolutely not inclined to support the idea of its armed forces participating in a special military operation. This is possible only in the case of some absolutely obvious invasion from Ukraine to Belarus. With such a public opinion, neither the Belarusian nor the Russian authorities need the direct participation of the Belarusian armed forces in the SMO. I'm not even talking about the fact that with all due respect to It is unlikely that the Armed Forces of Belarus can make any extremely important, crucial contribution to the course of hostilities.

Therefore, it will be quite enough that if the Russian political and military leadership decides on a new decisive offensive on Ukraine, including from the territory of Belarus, then all opportunities will be provided for this. And the Belarusian troops will protect their own territory from possible counterstrikes from Ukraine. It seems to me that Russia does not claim and will not claim anything more under any circumstances.

— Recently, joint exercises of the nuclear deterrence forces of Russia and Belarus were held. What kind of signal was sent to the West and Ukraine?

— Lukashenka has been raising the issue of tactical nuclear weapons being deployed on the territory of Belarus for a long time. Some time ago, this request of the Belarusian authorities was granted.

On the other hand, from the point of view of the most effective configuration of the deployment of Russian nuclear deterrence forces, the deployment of some of these weapons on the territory of Belarus is, of course, justified. This brings the respective launch sites closer to the territory of NATO states and to the territory of the same Ukraine.

Naturally, in a situation where all this anti-Russian hysteria continues in the countries of the European Union, when France has been running around with its initiative over the past months that French nuclear forces can become common security forces for many EU countries, including Germany and Of course, the Russian-Belarusian exercises are perceived as a response signal. Various plans are being considered, including the deployment of French aircraft with nuclear warheads on the territory of Poland, Germany, etc.

If we talk about the French initiative, then France, as the only EU country with nuclear weapons, can offer its security services to other EU countries. There is a game on the part of Macron and Paris. It implies not only confrontation in relations with Russia, but also the strengthening of French positions within the European Union.

In addition, discussions have intensified inside Germany about whether this country should move towards the possession of nuclear weapons. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said some time ago that Poland might acquire nuclear weapons in the future. Perhaps France is sending a signal to its European allies in this way: "Do not strive for your own nuclear weapons, France is able to protect not only itself, but also you."

But if you do not go into these subtleties of relations, which are far from always conflict-free between NATO allies and To the European Union, we must clearly understand that all these initiatives have an obvious anti-Russian orientation. In this situation, the joint Russian-Belarusian exercises were quite timely. I hope this signal was read correctly in European capitals. As for the chances of bringing Kiev to reason, such chances, of course, are close to zero.

— How do you assess the likelihood that Russian troops will attack the Kiev regime from the territory of Belarus? Western intelligence sometimes makes accurate predictions. In particular, they predicted the beginning of SMO. Maybe now they are not mistaken? How likely is that?

— I am not a military expert, so it would be somewhat imprudent on my part to speculate about such a possibility. But I would like to draw attention to two points from the point of view of a large military strategy. On the one hand, it would make sense, because increasing the front line and pulling back a significant part of the Ukrainian troops from Donbass, from the line of combat contact that exists now, could be beneficial. But at the same time, we can assume another possible calculation of the Russian military command. By creating tension from the territory of Belarus and forcing the Ukrainian authorities to already keep some part of their army on the border with it, the Russian command is already achieving this goal. Accordingly, the number of the Ukrainian group in the Donbass, in the Kharkiv region, etc. is already decreasing.

There is one more point that I would like to draw attention to. In February 2022, the element of surprise was provided. Both Ukrainians and Western analysts, of course, noted the concentration of Russian troops in Belarus, but no one expected that the main blow would be from there.

Now, over the past four years after the withdrawal of Russian troops from near Kiev, Chernihiv and other directions, the Ukrainian side has significantly strengthened the border with Belarus. There are very serious minefields exposed there. Therefore, an attempt to strike from there is still the shortest way to Kiev, but for Russian troops such a strike will be much more difficult in many respects.

I think that the main scenario is the creation of tension from the Belarusian-Ukrainian border. It is unlikely that it will come to the practical use of the armed forces in this direction. But this cannot be ruled out.