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Monitoring group denies Lukashenko's claim of Ukrainian drones in Belarus

by The Kyiv Independent news desk August 11, 2024 7:20 PM 2 min read

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko speaks to reporters during the Eurasian Economic Summit in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on Dec. 25, 2023. (Contributor/Getty Images)

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Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko's claim that several drones from Ukraine were shot down over Belarus on Aug. 9 is false, the monitoring group Belarusian Hajun said on Aug. 11.

Lukashenko announced on Aug. 10 that Belarusian forces downed several aerial targets from Ukraine the previous night and called the incident "a Ukrainian provocation." He then ordered military reinforcements to border areas near Ukraine.

Belarusian Hajun, an open-source intelligence project, called Lukashenko's allegation "nonsense."

"According to the monitoring group Belarusian Hajun, on Aug. 9, 2024, during flights of the Belarusian Armed Forces, no drones (UAVs) were detected," the group reported on Telegram.

With both Belarus and Russia as neighbors, Ukraine's northern border has been under threat since the full-scale war. When Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine, it also used Belarus as a launching pad to invade Ukraine from the north.

Following the alleged drone incursion, Lukashenko ordered Belarusian forces to strengthen their military presence in the Gomel and Mozyr directions, including sending the Polonez rocket systems and Iskander mid-range ballistic missile complexes there. On the Ukrainian side, the area borders Kyiv, Zhytomyr and Chernihiv oblasts.

Speaking on Aug. 11, State Border Guard Service spokesperson Andrii Demchenko said that Ukraine has not seen additional Belarusian troops being deployed to the border amid Minsk's claims of reinforcements.

"The situation along the border is fully controlled. We do not record the movement of either equipment or personnel near our border," Demchenko said.

Russian drones have crossed into Belarusian airspace several times over the summer on their way to attack Ukraine, the Belarusian Hajun monitoring group has reported.

Author: The Kyiv Independent news desk

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