Ukraine on Sunday accused its neighbor Belarus of “massing” troops on the two countries’ shared border, and a statement from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry warned Minsk against “unfriendly moves.”
The statement said that Ukrainian intelligence had monitored Belarus “massing a large number of its soldiers… in the Gomel region near Ukraine’s northern border under the guise of conducting training exercises.”
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry added, “We warn the Belarusian authorities against committing tragic mistakes against their country and urge its armed forces to put an end to unfriendly actions.”
The ministry added that Belarusian special operations forces were among the military personnel deployed on the border.
The equipment included tanks, artillery, air defense systems and engineering equipment near Ukraine’s northern border, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Sunday that Minsk had deployed about a third of its armed forces along the entire border, the state-run BelTA news agency reported.
“We sent (our forces) and concentrated them at certain points, in anticipation of war, for defense. Our army is along the entire border,” Belta quoted Lukashenko as saying, speaking to Russian state television at the time.
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