President Zelensky warns that Kyiv’s northern neighbour is once again a threat as it establishes artillery positions close to the frontier
Marc Bennetts
May 11, 2026
The Times
With its swamplands and thick beech forests that are home to wild boar, the border region of Rivne in northwest Ukraine would pose daunting obstacles for an invading army from neighbouring Belarus. “The Ukrainian nature is itself helping to defend Ukraine,” said Yuriy Shakhraichuk, a lieutenant colonel in the country’s border guard service.
But natural defences are not all Ukraine is counting on to prevent a potential attack by Belarus, the former Soviet state that is the Kremlin’s biggest ally in Europe. The Rivne border crossing — which was once used daily by thousands of travellers — is now protected by landmines, vast mounds of earth, sensors and trenches filled with water.
“Don’t stray from the right side of the path,” said Shakhraichuk, a press officer with Ukraine’s 9th Border Detachment, as he gestured towards huge anti-tank landmines that were partially covered in earth. The Belarusian checkpoint was visible about 100m away. Border guards with automatic weapons and dogs patrolled a barbed wire fence, while an armoured vehicle with a mounted machinegun was on standby to shoot down any Russian drones that flew into Ukraine.
Ukraine’s 670-mile border with Belarus has been closed since February 2022, after the Russian army used the country as a platform for an assault on Kyiv. President Putin’s troops met fierce Ukrainian resistance and were forced to retreat. But Ukraine has been on guard ever since.
Not far from the border, which is about 200 miles from Kyiv, army engineers have constructed sprawling fortifications that include “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank defences and coils of barbed wire that bristle across the steppe. “We all remember the stab in the back from Belarus in 2022. We will not allow this to happen again,” said Brigadier General Volodymyr Shvediuk, the head of Ukraine’s Western Operational Command.
While Belarus has not yet sent its own troops to fight in Ukraine, it allowed Russia to use its territory for drone and missiles strikes at the start of the war. It has also repaired Russian tanks and provided Moscow with new military equivalent to compensate for its wartime losses. Its hospitals have treated injured Russian soldiers.
Now, as the Kremlin struggles to replenish its forces in Ukraine, there are fears that President Putin is seeking to pressure Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian dictator, to play a greater role in the war. Lukashenko’s regime depends heavily on the Kremlin’s economic and political support, and exiled opposition figures describe Belarus as a Russian puppet state.
President Zelensky said last month that Belarus was building roads towards Ukraine and establishing artillery positions close to the border. “We believe that Russia will once again try to draw Belarus into its war,” he said. His comments came as Lukashenko warned that Belarus was preparing for conflict, because “there is no point in hoping for peaceful times”.
On May 2, as tensions rose, Zelensky said that Ukraine had detected “unusual activity” on the Belarusian side of the border. He gave no further details. However, Ukraine’s border guard service warned on Thursday that Belarus was expanding military infrastructure. “This includes logistics infrastructure, training grounds, and bases that Belarus could make available to Russian forces at any moment if Russia decides to redeploy troops,” Andriy Demchenko, its spokesman, said.
While Russia’s botched attempt to seize Kyiv was launched from border regions closer to the Ukrainian capital, analysts say that any incursion by Belarusian troops could take place in western Ukraine and target key military transportation hubs in the cities of Lutsk and Rivne. “The raid might even threaten Lviv in the far west near the Polish border, and it could threaten key logistical routes through which crucial western weapons and munitions arrive,” wrote Luke Coffey, a former special adviser to the British defence ministry and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a US-based think tank.
“Belarus would not have to occupy Ukrainian territory in this scenario. Instead, it could slice key motorway and rail routes or target key transit junctures and bridges to impact the resupply of western support. Merely keeping western Ukraine under constant threat and pressure for a long time could disrupt the flow of western aid,” he added.
Last week, Ukraine reported that a balloon carrying equipment that could be used to amplify signals for Russian military drones had drifted across the border with Belarus into the Chernobyl exclusion zone. “This isn’t the only such case, there have been several more. They can always say that it happened accidentally, that these are civilian weather probes monitoring the weather. But they have relay equipment installed that helps Shahed [drones] carry out strikes, and so on. These are not accidents,” Shvediuk said. “The situation is difficult. We see a real increase in their presence in the border areas. This includes patrols, special operations forces and police forces. But we don’t see them creating a strike force for an offensive. It would take them 15 to 20 days to do this. But the situation is developing and anything is possible.”
He also suggested that Belarus’s actions may be a move to pull Ukrainian military resources away from the front lines. “It distracts our forces and engineering resources for defence equipment,” he said. “But we have to deal with this.”
A new ground invasion of Ukraine is not the only danger. In 2023, Putin said that Russia had transferred tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. Moscow said it had also deployed Oreshnik ballistic missiles to the country in December.
Putin says Oreshnik ballistic missiles are impossible to intercept because they can travel at more than ten times the speed of sound. Last week, Moscow threatened to use Oreshniks to flatten
Kyiv’s government district, if Ukraine tried to disrupt Saturday’s Victory Day parade in Moscow.
Lukashenko has said that the Oreshnik missiles are “combat ready.” However, Shvediuk said that Ukraine’s intelligence suggested they were so far largely for show. “We know that these Oreshnik missiles are located close to us and how many missiles they have. But we are not afraid of them in the condition they are in — they are more for photographs,” he said. He declined to give further details.
It is unclear how the Belarusian army would react if Lukashenko were to order it to invade Ukraine on Putin’s orders. Just 27 per cent of the population supports Russia’s invasion, according to a poll that was published in November by the Chatham House think tank.
“Lukashenko is a clever man and he knows perfectly well that he will face a defeat [if Belarus attacks],” Shvediuk said. “I think he will try and avoid this. But nothing can be ruled out. We don’t need anyone else’s territory, but anyone who comes here [as an invader] will be destroyed.”
Marc Bennetts has been covering Russia and the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine, for The Times and Sunday Times since 2015. He has reported from all across Russia, from Chechnya to deepest Siberia. He has also reported from Iran and North Korea. Marc is the author of two books: I’m Going to Ruin Their Lives, about Putin’s crackdown on the opposition, and Football Dynamo, about Russian football culture. He is now writing a thriller, set during the polar night in Russia’s far north.