Putin visits Belarus amid worries of a new Ukraine attack

• Vladimir Putin with defense and foreign ministers went to Belarus.
• People in Kyiv worry about Putin’s trip to Belarus.
• Moscow and Minsk have set up a military unit together in Belarus.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his defence and foreign ministers went to Belarus, On Monday. This made people in Kiev worry that Putin might try to get his ex-Soviet ally to join a new ground offensive that would open a new front against Ukraine.

Since he invaded Ukraine in February, Putin’s troops have been pushed back in the north, northeast, and south. Now, Putin is taking a more public role in the war. On Friday, he went to the headquarters of his operation to talk to military commanders.

His first trip to Minsk since 2019 was to meet with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. This was before the COVID pandemic and a wave of pro-democracy protests in 2020, which Lukashenko crushed with strong help from the Kremlin.

In February, Russian forces tried to attack the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv from Belarus, but they failed. Russian and Belarusian military activity has been going on there for months.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that Belarus was Russia’s “number one ally” but that suggestions Moscow aims to pressure Minsk into joining what it calls its “special military operation” were “stupid and unfounded fabrications”.

Ukrainian joint forces commander Serhiy Nayev had said he believed the talks would address “further aggression against Ukraine and the broader involvement of the Belarusian armed forces in the operation against Ukraine, in particular, in our opinion, also on the ground”.

Ukraine’s top general, Valery Zaluzhniy, told the Economist last week that Russia was preparing 200,000 new troops for a major offensive that could come from the east, south, or even Belarus as early as January, but more likely in the spring.

Moscow and Minsk have set up a military unit together in Belarus and done a lot of training there. Last week, Russia sent three fighter planes and an early warning and control plane to Belarus.

But Lukashenko, who is looked down upon in the West and gets a lot of help from Moscow, has said over and over that Belarus will not join the war in Ukraine. Diplomats from other countries say that sending Belarusian troops to war would be very unpopular at home.

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