Russian ally denounces Western provocations – RT Russia and the former Soviet Union
US and others pushed Ukraine to violate Belarusian border, top military commander in Minsk says
Western nations supporting kyiv are using its troops to provoke Belarus into a response they can then condemn, the country’s top military commander has claimed. Ukraine used similar tactics when it fired a missile into Polish territory, he added.
Suspicion grows stronger every day in Belarus”that the Western powers are trying to provoke us into an action that they might interpret in a way that would benefit them. But naturally they make maximum use of the Ukrainian armed forces,” General Viktor Gulevich, chief of the Belarusian general staff, said in a television interview broadcast on Sunday.
He cited repeated violations of the Belarusian border from the Ukrainian side, both by drones and armed personnel, reported by national border guards. Some of these incidents were filmed and appeared to be “demonstrative,” he said.
In mid-November, Belarus released footage of what they said was an armed Ukrainian soldier crossing a bridge into the country’s territory to take photos and rummage through the snow. Border guards blamed the incident on “bad discipline” in some Ukrainian units and said this posed a risk of firefights.
While accusing the US and its allies of using Ukraine against Belarus, Gulevich said Kiev used the same approach against the West last month, when a Ukrainian air defense missile hit a Polish border village, killing two people.
“Most likely, this was done on purpose to draw Western nations into a harsher confrontation with the Russian Federation, which could go as far as direct aggression, conflict,” he said.
The incident happened amid a Russian missile attack on targets in Ukraine. Officials in kyiv, including President Vladimir Zelensky, have rushed to claim that the projectile that flew through Polish airspace was Russian and was intentionally fired at the village. Zelensky called on NATO to invoke Article 5 (collective defence) in response.
The Polish government later acknowledged that the missile was “most likely” a Ukrainian anti-aircraft weapon that veered off course.
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Missile incident was Ukrainian ‘provocation’, says Polish politician
Belarus is a close ally of Russia and allowed Moscow to use its territory during the military operation in Ukraine. Kyiv claimed that Belarusian troops had been deployed in the country, but Minsk denied any direct involvement in the hostilities.
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