Belarus deploys 20,000 soldiers, aviation and air defense forces on border with Ukraine

Belarus has deployed aircraft and air defense troops to the border with Ukraine a day after President Alexander Lukashenko announced he would station about a third of the country's troops along the border, according to Associated Press.

The Belarusian military has deployed anti-aircraft missiles and soldiers from the radio-technical corps, Major General Andrei Lukyanovich, commander of the Belarusian air defense forces, said on national television.

He called the move a significant increase. Associated Press recalls that the Belarusian army has a total of about 60,000 troops.

Recently, Lukashenko said that Belarus had redeployed almost a third of its army to the border with Ukraine . This is due to the fact that there are allegedly more than 120 thousand Ukrainian soldiers there. In his opinion, Ukraine believes that "Putin will again attack from the territory of Belarus."

After the invasion of Ukrainian troops into the Kursk region of the Russian Federation, Lukashenko began calling for negotiations. Ukraine has not confirmed the Belarusian deployment to the 1,084-kilometer common border.

Russia has used Belarus — which depends on Russian loans and cheap energy — as a staging ground for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, moving its troops through Belarusian territory to attack Ukraine from the north. Russia also moved some of its tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus in 2023.