No strike force forming on Belarusian border – SBGS
No strike group is currently being formed on the territory of Belarus, but Ukraine continues to closely monitor the situation ahead of the upcoming joint Russian-Belarusian military drills, "Zapad-2025."
This was reported by Andrii Demchenko, spokesperson for the State Border Guard Service, according to Censor.NET, citing I-UA.
According to Demchenko, the active phase of the drills is expected to take place in September, and Ukraine is monitoring which forces will be involved, particularly whether any Russian units will be deployed to Belarus. He emphasized that the presence of such troops could significantly increase the threat level for Ukraine.
As of now, the State Border Guard Service has not recorded any abnormal activity along the border with Belarus, but the direction remains potentially dangerous. Ukraine continues to reinforce its defensive lines along the entire border with the Republic of Belarus — over 1,080 kilometers from Volyn to the Chernihiv region.
According to the spokesperson, special attention is being paid to monitoring the situation deeper inside Belarusian territory in order to respond promptly to any potential changes.
On April 29, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Russia could be preparing for new actions in the summer of 2025 under the guise of military drills. Earlier, he noted that Moscow was planning to prepare up to 15 divisions totaling as many as 150,000 troops to reinforce the Belarusian axis.
Meanwhile, according to a May 29 report from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the scale of the "Zapad-2025" drills has been reduced, and the main maneuver has been moved further away from Belarus’s western border.
Commenting on the potential threat of a new offensive from Belarusian territory, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi previously noted that large-scale drills may serve as cover for the formation of assault groupings — a tactic already used in 2022.
