Russia tells the West and Ukraine that if they move against Belarus, “disastrous consequences” will follow

Russia warned the West and Ukraine on Friday of “disastrous consequences” if Kyiv moved against Belarus, a close ally of Russia. Russia made it clear that it would step in to defend a country where it has tactical nuclear weapons stationed.

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, told reporters that Moscow was worried about what she called “increasingly provocative” behavior on the border with Belarus. She also said that she didn’t think there would be any attempts to make things worse in the area.

A few days after Ukraine’s sudden invasion of Russia’s Kursk region on August 6, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who is a close friend of President Vladimir Putin, said that Kyiv might be planning to attack Belarus without any proof.

Minsk said that Ukrainian drones were flying in its airspace. Later, it said it would be moving more troops to the border with Ukraine, but Kyiv said it hadn’t seen any big changes there.

“We take due note of the information received about the intensification of the activities of Ukrainian forces in the border zone,” she said.

“We see these facts ourselves and are aware of constant attempts from the Ukrainian side to use drones and to send terrorists into the republic,” she said.

Last month, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said that the country “has never taken and will not take any unfriendly actions against the Belarusian people.”

It was clear that Zakharova was talking about Ukraine’s invasion into Kursk. She said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had shown he could take “reckless steps” and accused him of planning his actions with Washington in advance of the November U.S. election.

“Therefore, in line with this logic, we do not rule out the possibility that these destructive forces could set the situation in the region in motion and escalate.”

She said that Russia and Belarus were part of a “Union State” and had agreed to protect their shared borders together. She pointed out that a joint regional military group and Russian tactical nuclear weapons were stationed in Belarus to do just that.

“The practical implementation of any scenarios which are aggressive towards Minsk is fraught with disastrous consequences not only for Ukraine, but also for its sponsors,” she noted.