At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Belarus had already become a springboard for the attack of the russian army, and now the Kremlin continues to concentrate its forces there. In particular, according to Kostyantyn Mashovets, one of the members of the Sprotyv community, 11,700 russians are currently concentrated in Belarus.
Thus, this number remains almost unchanged since the beginning of November, when the estimate of russian forces in Belarus amounted to 10,000 troops and forms a certain trend with a gradual increase from 9,000 in October. At the same time, according to official reports from Minsk, the russian contingent should amount to 22-25 thousand.
Read more: Ukrainian Navy Preparing Crews For Additional Anti-Ship Complexes And UAVs
Another aspect of the transfer of these forces is that they undergo active training in Belarus. That is, the territory of the country is used not for accumulation of forces, but for solving problems with the training of conscripts for partial mobilization. And after the training of a certain batch of russians, they do not remain on the territory of Belarus, but are transferred to the front.
According to Mashovets, only Belarusian units are deployed directly in the border areas between Belarus and Ukraine:
- 2nd Airborne Assault Battalion of the 38th Separate Guards Air Assault Brigade (Uzhovo and Pinsk settlements in Brest oblast);
- A detachment with an estimated number of battalions from the 5th Spetsnaz Brigade (Ivanovo village district, Brest oblast);
- 2nd Parachute Battalion of the 103rd Separate Guards Airborne Brigade (Lelchytsi and Bragin villages in Gomel oblast).
"Obviously, the military command of the armed forces of Belarus maintains on a permanent basis only forces and equipment from the highly mobile component of its own army in the border areas with Ukraine. The reinforcement of this group at the expense of units of motorized rifle and artillery units and formations occurs only periodically and on a rotational basis", notes Mashovets.
At the same time, as the ISW notes, information regarding the possibility of an offensive from Belarus is an important part of russia’s information war against Ukraine.
"Belarus is extraordinarily unlikely to invade Ukraine in the foreseeable future whatever the course of these information operations. A Belarusian intervention in Ukraine, moreover, would not be able to do more than draw Ukrainian ground forces away from other parts of the theater temporarily given the extremely limited effective combat power at Minsk’s disposal," the ISW report notes.
As analysts write, all the Kremlin's efforts in relation to attempts to force Minsk to support russia’s offensive campaign against Ukraine are aimed at strengthening control over Belarus.
Read more: 292 Days of russia-Ukraine War – russian Casualties In Ukraine
