New attacks from the north?
Minsk and Moscow start military maneuvers
01/16/2023 12:32 p.m
Almost exactly a year ago, Russia used Belarus for the first attack on Ukraine. Now Minsk and Moscow are starting a military maneuver together. Fears of another attack from northern Nachtbarland are growing in Ukraine.
Amid fears in Ukraine of renewed Russian attacks, including from Belarus, Minsk and Moscow have begun maneuvers with their air forces. The Belarusian Ministry of Defense announced in Minsk that the main goal of the joint tactical exercise of flight units from different military units is to improve interaction in order to fulfill combat training tasks. All military air bases and military training areas of the air force and the air defense of the Republic of Belarus are involved in the country, it said.
Meanwhile, fears persisted in neighboring Ukraine that Russia could again use Belarus to attack the country, as it did at the beginning of the war a good year ago. The ruler Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus had always emphasized that he did not want to be drawn into the war. However, Ukraine has long seen Belarus as a war party. Russia had recently had thousands of soldiers and military technology relocated to the country.
Western military experts have always warned of the risk of an attack on Ukraine from Belarus. However, they do not consider a new offensive from there to be very likely at the moment because, among other things, the concentration of troops is too low. The Ukrainian military nevertheless described the danger as real. After new massive rocket attacks on Ukraine on Saturday, the Ukrainian military announced that rockets had also come from the north. That’s Belarus. The missiles – possibly ballistic – could therefore not be located and destroyed. The air alarm had also started with a delay in the capital Kyiv because of the late location.
Belarus, however, emphasized the exercise character of the maneuver. It is about a variety of issues, including the organization of aerial reconnaissance, joint air patrols on state borders, support for troops from the air, the tactical landing of a plane with paratroopers, the delivery of supplies and the rescue of the injured. Last year, a Russian troop deployment in Belarus, which was also declared as a maneuver, seamlessly merged into the war of aggression against Ukraine.