Sunday , 22 December, 2024 | 8 পৌষ, 1431 Bangabdo
Published: 06:27 19 August 2024
Russia has been invading Ukraine for two and a half years. And in the meantime, the Ukrainian forces are continuing to attack by entering Russia for the first time. They have already gone far inside the Russian territory.
And amid these incidents, Ukraine has gathered millions of troops on the border of Belarus. Belarus has also deployed a large number of troops in the border region in response to this move by Ukraine. And this is increasing the fear of a new war.
According to Al Jazeera, the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, said that Ukraine has deployed more than 120,000 troops on the border with Belarus. This was reported by the state news agency of this country, a close ally of Russia.
On the other hand, after Ukraine's incursion into Russia's Kursk region, fighting continues between Russian and Ukrainian troops there.
Lukashenko, a staunch ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said on Sunday that Minsk had deployed about a third of its armed forces along the entire border in response to the deployment of Ukrainian troops. Ukraine, however, did not immediately respond to the deployment of troops on the border with Belarus.
"Seeing their aggressive policy, we have gone there and deployed troops at some points," Lukashenko said in an interview with Russian state television. If there is a war, our military forces will be on defense along the entire border.
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera's Dorsa Jabbari from Moscow said Lukashenko had "made some very serious threats to officials in Kiev". He said that the President of Belarus has made it clear that if Ukraine tries to enter Belarusian territory, they will attack.
However, Lukashenko did not say exactly how many Belarusian troops are deployed on the border with Ukraine. According to the assessment of the Military Balance 2022 of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the professional army of Belarus consists of about 48 thousand soldiers and about 12 thousand state border guards.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko's comments on the deployment of Ukrainian troops to the border came as Ukrainian forces continued their offensive after entering Russia's Kursk region and destroying a second strategic bridge there in a week.
The Ukrainian military also released video footage of the attack on the bridge on Sunday. This bridge is said to have been over the Sem River in Zhavnoy, Kursk region. However, it is still unclear when exactly the attack took place.
This is the deepest and most significant incursion of Ukrainian troops into Russian territory since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Ukraine has been carrying out this attack on Russian territory for almost two weeks since Russian forces started invading Ukraine.
Earlier this week, Ukraine destroyed another bridge over the Sem River near the city of Glushkovo. This bridge was used by Russia to supply troops.
Meanwhile, nearly two weeks after Ukrainian troops crossed the border into Russia, it's becoming clear they plan to stay. President Zelensky said last Saturday that his troops were strengthening positions in Kursk and expanding further into Russia.
Advertisement