Pavel Muraveiko. Photo courtesy of the Defense Ministry
MINSK, 29 June (BelTA) – The situation at Belarus’ southern border is complicated, but all kinds of measures are being taken to contain the situation, BelTA learned from a comment of Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, First Deputy Defense Minister, Major-General Pavel Muraveiko published by the Defense Ministry’s Telegram channel.
Pavel Muraveiko said: “The situation at our southern border is sufficiently complicated. And it changes every day. And not for the better at that. The Belarusian-Ukrainian border is 1,084km long. Literally for the last few weeks we’ve been observing unwarranted activity on the Ukrainian side of the border. We cannot understand reasons behind it yet.”
The officer noted that special operations units of the 1st Presidential Brigade arrived at the inhabited locality Ovruch in the direction of Rovno and Zhitomir.
“The deployment of special operations units near the state border always gives reasons for concern. And these are the objects that form real challenges able to saturate our territory with sabotage and reconnaissance forces, who are capable of staging provocations. Apart from that, we see movement of army units and periodic flights of Bayraktar type drones near the state border. Tactical drones are used to stage provocations by violating our state border. We see the ongoing placement of mines and the enhancement of engineer obstacles,” Pavel Muraveiko noted.
He stressed that “we are forced to move our units there, link up with border service units, enhance individual deployments, and make preparations for cover operations in addition to moving artillery units there in order to be able to respond in time.”
Pavel Muraveiko emphasized that the situation at the southern border is complicated.
“I can say the situation is complicated. Blatant, powerful, high-profile provocations have not happened yet only thanks to the common sense that exists at all levels of communications and interaction. I am talking about political accomplishments, border interaction, and actions of our units, including near the border. But we can clearly see genuine challenges, conditions for doing some manipulations. We see it and we keep our finger on the pulse,” the officer said.
