SHKLOV, 10 August (BelTA) - During his working trip to Shklov District on 10 August, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko revealed details of the incident in the airspace, which occurred the night before and was connected with the violation of airspace by Ukraine, BelTA has learned.
“At 18:10 yesterday the Belarusian Air Forces were put on high alert. We call it number one readiness. These are air defense forces on duty. The fact is that (we suspect that this is not the first time) the Armed Forces of Ukraine have violated all the rules and have incurred into Belarus’ airspace. It happened in the eastern direction, quite to us, near Kostyukovichi District,” the president said. “The air defense forces were put on full alert to intercept the targets. There were about a dozen of them. Jets and a helicopter were scrambled. The MLRS means were also put on high alert.”
“At 19:04 at an altitude of 1.5km and a range of 6.5km, the air defense forces destroyed several targets over the territory of Belarus. The search for what was destroyed is underway. We suspect these were attack drones. They violated the airspace of Belarus and flew from Ukraine. We destroyed the targets over the territory of Belarus. The rest were transferred (we have the unified air defense system with Russia) to the Russian Federation. According to the Russian General Staff and the commander of this direction of Russian air defense, those targets were hit near Yaroslavl. The first direction was Smolensk. Then those flying over Russia changed their flight trajectory to head towards Yaroslavl. They were intercepted by Russian air defense systems and destroyed,” the Belarusian leader said.
Aleksandr Lukashenko said that the Defense Ministry and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Belarus had been instructed to take appropriate measures to ensure the security of the state. “I do not understand why Ukraine needs this. We need to figure it out. As I said before, we made it clear to them that any provocations will not go unanswered,” he said.
The president praised the high level of interaction with the Russian air defense forces. All targets were destroyed both over Belarus and Russia.
“The unpleasant thing is that the Ukrainians, as I have warned you many times, show by such steps that they are not ready for any peace and continue to escalate the tensions. Two days ago, there was an attack on the Kursk direction, where they advanced into the territory by several dozen kilometers - 30-35km today. They are digging trenches there. This provocation with an attempt to hit the Russian Federation,” the Belarusian leader said. “It is very undesirable to deal with these issues in such a manner today. But there is no way out. I believe this provocation will be much discussed in the media. I am informing you about what happened in order to avoid various kinds of insinuations,” the Belarusian leader said.
“This once again shows that we need to work hard here on own land and produce appropriate results in order to avoid what is happening in Ukraine today,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
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