Speaking on Friday at the Munich on security conference, Volodymyr Zelensky said that the attack could come from Bélarus, a long -standing ally of Russia.
Russia is preparing to A major military escalation, which could target NATO countries from next yearsays Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Speaking on Friday at the Munich conference on security, he notably appointed Bélarus as the starting point for a possible future attack. The Ukrainian leader said Kyiv “Clearly understands what the Russians will do with the Belarus”.
“Russia is preparing 15 divisions. About 100 to 150,000 soldiers are trained to worsen the situation towards Bélarus”says Volodymyr Zelensky. “I don’t know if they will attack Ukraine, but they will. Perhaps Ukraine, perhaps Poland, perhaps the Baltic countries”.
The Ukrainian president said that EU political leaders remained “Very concerned” by the reaction of the United States and their possible support in the event of an attackafter the American defense secretary Pete Hegseth said that Ukraine’s membership in NATO was “Not realistic”.
“Everyone in Europe is worried. Europeans are very worried. They fear being without the support of the United States”he explains.
“What we already see is that Europe will further strengthen its unity around Ukraine, because it is its protection. They understand more and more that they are the next. Not in the future distant, but in the near future “.
Pretext of military exercises
At the start of the week, the Danish Defense Intelligence Service launched a similar warning, saying that Russia could launch a large -scale war against Europe in the next five years if Moscow “Perceives NATO as militarily weakened or politically divided”.
At the beginning of 2022, Russia used Bélarus as a launching ramp for its large -scale invasion of Ukraine. Before that, Minsk authorized the Russian armed forces to organize “military exercises” lasting several weeks, which were only a facade for the planned invasion.
February 24, Russian troops have entered Ukraine from the Belarus and quickly occupied the northern parts of the Kyiv and Chernihiv regionsthat they held until the end of March.
According to NATO estimates, the attack force that has entered Ukraine from the Belarus had up to 30,000 Russian soldiers.
Last December, President Bélarusse Alexandre Loukachenkoally of Vladimir Putin, said that His country hosted dozens of Russian nuclear weapons and would prepare installations for the expected deployment of the last hypersonic ballistic missile from Moscow.
These remarks were made after the Russian president Vladimir Putin and himself signed a treaty giving security guarantees to the Bélarus, the closest ally of Moscow, including the possible use of nuclear weapons to help repel any assault.
This pact follows The revision by Moscow of its nuclear doctrine, which for the first time places the Bélarus under the Russian atomic umbrellain a context of tensions with the West linked to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
