Moscow is trying to drag Belarus into a confrontation with Ukraine. The threat from the north could force Kyiv to divert resources and attention from a counteroffensive in eastern and southern Ukraine.
On Monday, two days after meeting with Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, Alexander Lukashenko announced the deployment of a joint regional grouping of troops, accusing Ukraine and Western countries of preparing strikes on Belarusian territory. According to Lukashenko, the formation of the group has already begun and is proceeding “within two days.” The troops will be stationed near the Ukrainian border, he added, and instructed to receive “more than one thousand” Russian soldiers on the territory of Belarus.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a video conference with G7 leaders on Tuesday:
Russia is trying to directly drag Belarus into this war. Indirectly [она] already pulled them in.
Zelensky called on the G7 to place international observers on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border “to eliminate even a hint of any threat from our side.”
According to Ukrainian military intelligence, in recent days Russia has deployed Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze drones at Belarusian bases. In addition, Minsk supplies Russian troops with weapons and ammunition, but so far is trying not to directly enter into the conflict. If Lukashenko orders Belarusians to be sent to the front, “people will simply switch sides,” said Frantisek Vecherko, a senior adviser to Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. People can be recruited into groups like the Wagner PMC, but they will not send a regular army to Ukraine, he says: “I don’t believe that Belarusians will go to fight in Ukraine on the side of Russia.”
In his opinion, the creation of a regional military group is intended to legalize the presence of Russian troops in Belarus and “create pressure on Ukraine, divert its forces and create tension on the border.”
The threat of attack from the north could pin down “several [украинских] brigades” – about 30,000 people who could otherwise participate in the counter-offensive in the east and south of the country, according to Mikhail Samus, director of the New Geopolitics Research Network in Kyiv
The joint group can also serve as cover for the arrival of new formations from mobilized Russians.
Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) believe that Russia could use Belarusian military bases to house and train thousands of newly mobilized troops, but they would not be able to quickly become a strike force:
The Kremlin may seek to use additional Russian forces in Belarus to keep Ukrainian units near Kiev and prevent them from being redeployed elsewhere to take part in counteroffensives.
Reports from Ukrainian military intelligence that Belarus has sent 492 tons of weapons and military equipment by rail to Russian troops in Crimea and is preparing several more trains suggest that Moscow is apparently not creating a strike force in Belarus, ISW said.
“If troops are sent [в Беларусь]it will be necessary to see where they will be placed and what capabilities they will demonstrate. Only then will we be able to assess whether Ukraine will again be threatened from the Belarusian direction,” says Konrad Muzyka from the Polish military consulting company Rochan Consulting. According to him, Belarus has not yet concentrated troops, and its position still looks defensive. But the threatening rhetoric that has begun to be heard in Minsk may be a prelude to a provocation that will provide a pretext for Belarus’ participation in hostilities, Muzyka warns.
According to former US Ambassador to Minsk Daniel Speckhard, the Russian army is already short of soldiers, so opening another front in Belarus is pointless. But in its war with the West, Moscow does not always think rationally; it is characterized by “an Eastern way of thinking that Ukrainians understand,” he says:
To open another front, it will be necessary to stage a provocation. This means that Belarus has no choice but to join Russia in this war.