![]() The regional group of forces-a dormant institution of the Union State comprised of Russia and Belarus that is to be mobilized in the face of a military threat to the two countries-had only existed on paper since its creation by Putin and Lukashenko in the early 2000s. Lukashenko called the deployment a response to NATO provocations on the border, the formation of sabotage units staffed by Belarusian émigrés, and Ukrainian plans to attack Belarus. On October 10, Lukashenko announced that he and Putin had decided to deploy a regional group of forces comprising troops from both their countries in Belarus. ![]() ![]() Yet rational analysis fails to entirely reassure, given what the world learned in February: that Lukashenko and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin inhabit their own reality, with its own risks and opportunities. It is futile, therefore, to ask whether a renewed offensive on Kyiv might be launched from Belarus with the participation of the country’s army, a question raised by the recent deployment of thousands of Russian troops in Belarus, Minsk’s increasingly militaristic rhetoric, and rumors of imminent mobilization in the Belarusian press.īased on the military balance and the political risks facing the contested Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko in the event of Belarus’s full entry into the war, a joint Russo-Belarusian attack on Ukraine from the north should not occur in the foreseeable future. Since the invasion of Ukraine, predicting the actions of Russia and Belarus has been a fool’s game, given how pointless and self-destructive their leaders’ wartime moves have been.
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