“The exercise is purely defensive in nature,” Pavel Muraveyko, first deputy state secretary of Belarus’s Security Council, said in remarks carried Sunday by the defence ministry.
Since Ukrainian forces pushed back Russian troops from the north of the country, Kyiv and its Western allies have been assessing the threat of another assault from Belarusian territory.
The Institute for the Study of War, based in the United States, said in an analytical note Monday that the risk of a new offensive from Belarus was “low” and “the risk of Belarusian direct involvement was very low”.
Meanwhile, UN atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi was expected in Ukraine on Monday to deploy observer missions at nuclear power plants across the country that have been a key concern throughout Russia’s invasion.
OBSERVER TEAMS AT NUCLEAR PLANTS
“I’m proud to lead this mission to Ukraine, where we’re deploying in all of the country’s NPPs (nuclear power plants) to provide assistance in nuclear safety and security,” he said on Twitter.
Ukraine in recent weeks has been pressing Western backers to supply its forces with advanced tanks, in particular the German-designed Leopard model.
The UK this weekend pledged 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine, which would make it the first Western country to supply the heavy tanks Kyiv has been calling for.
Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, told reporters Monday that fighting in Ukraine would continue with or without the deliveries.
“These tanks are burning and will burn,” he said.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview with German media on Sunday that “recent pledges for heavy warfare equipment are important — and I expect more in the near future”.
Separately on Monday, Ukraine officials said that Russian forces had continued shelling the southern city of Kherson, which was recaptured by Kyiv’s forces late last year.
The regional governor Yaroslav Yanushevych said one woman was killed in an attack on a residential building and that Russian forces also damaged an empty children’s hospital.
In Crimea, the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, the Moscow-appointed official responsible for the military city Sevastopol said Russian forces had downed seven drones over the last 24 hours.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
