Military expert explains why large-scale offensive from Belarus unlikely

Ukraine’s northern border area is sufficiently fortified, making a large-scale enemy offensive unlikely, although strikes on border regions or various acts of sabotage aimed at tying down Ukrainian forces cannot be ruled out.

This opinion was expressed by military expert Pavlo Narozhnyi in a comment to Ukrainian Radio, Ukrinform reports.

Commenting on the reality of a possible offensive threat from Belarus and along the Chernihiv-Kyiv direction, the expert noted: “First of all, in this sector, which is very close to Kyiv, there are two rivers. On one section, the border runs eastward along the Dnipro River. On the second section, farther west, it runs along the Prypiat River, slightly to the north. …If there is any offensive in this closest sector, it would involve forcing river crossings. And crossing rivers is an extremely difficult military task associated with heavy losses.”

In addition, he said, northern Ukraine contains many lakes, small rivers, swamps, and very few roads.

“And all these roads are mined, and engineering fortifications have been built there… So simply advancing through the area will not work. Quite serious fortifications have been constructed along the entire border line,” the expert stressed.

In his opinion, a direct enemy offensive is unlikely, but another scenario – the concentration of troops – is entirely realistic.

“They (Russia – ed.) could deploy around 50,000–60,000 troops there, and we would not be able to ignore such a situation. We would have to redeploy forces there from another section of the front. In other words, it would simply tie down our troops. They would just stand there, we would stand there too, and meanwhile active combat operations could be taking place in other sectors of the front,” Narozhnyi believes.

At the same time, the enemy could resort to bombing border areas “so that Ukraine has to respond by evacuating people, deploying police, equipment, and carrying out defensive measures,” the expert said.

According to him, a third scenario involves deploying sabotage and reconnaissance groups.

“They cross the border… there are forests and swamps there, and theoretically they may find some weak point. Again, we would not be able to ignore this. That means we would redeploy additional forces from other sectors of the front and reinforce the units stationed there, resulting in a significant diversion of troops,” the expert explained.

Another possible scenario, he said, is an incursion by relatively small enemy units into certain areas.

“They could send several thousand troops there and start combat operations near the border with Ukraine, and once again we would have to respond somehow. And we understand what the information environment would look like at that moment – claims that ‘an offensive is coming from Belarus,’ because they would want to provoke panic in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities,” Narozhnyi said.

In his opinion, it is “completely logical” for Russia to try to draw Alexander Lukashenko into the war.

“But so far we see that Lukashenko is resisting and doing everything possible to prevent this from happening,” the expert added.

Read also: European Commission comments on joint Russia-Belarus nuclear drills

As reported by Ukrinform, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced increased protection of Ukraine’s northern border due to threats from Russia’s Bryansk region and Belarus. Funding has been allocated for all defensive measures along the Chernihiv-Kyiv direction.