Expert: Belarus' statements about deployment of aviation and air defence near border with Ukraine are PSYOPs
The deployment of Belarusian aviation and air defence forces near the border with Ukraine is currently an information and psychological operation (PSYOP), but it cannot be ruled out that Vladimir Putin will ‘push’ the Belarusian dictator to "take more concrete actions".
This opinion was expressed in a comment to Ukrinform by Yaroslav Chornohor, Director of the Russian and Belarusian Studies Programme of the Foreign Policy Council "Ukrainian Prism", PhD in History.
"So far, as of today, this is just an information and psychological operation on the part of Belarus. Of course, we cannot rule out the possibility that Putin will ‘push’ Lukashenko and he will take some more concrete actions, not just demonstrations. Therefore, we must be prepared for any development of events," Chornohor said.
According to him, logically, it seems that it would not be profitable for Belarus to enter a full-fledged war. "But it is clear that they have such close ties with Putin that if he puts pressure, Lukashenko will simply have to react somehow," Chornohor said.
In this context, he noted that an additional trigger could be a video of a Ukrainian tank flying a Belarusian white-red-white flag in the Kursk region, which was shared on social media. In the expert's opinion, the Belarusian dictator may "cling to it and say that this is our national security, so we will somehow enter this war".
Regarding anti-war public sentiment in Belarus, Chornohor noted that we do not have reliable sociological data.
"All we know is either some distorted information, or the subjective views of the Belarusian democratic forces and their sociologists, or our imagination. It is believed that Belarusians are allegedly not inclined to war (with Ukraine)... And what people are, if they are not first ‘pumped up’ with propaganda, as, for example, in Russia? We cannot rule out the possibility that Belarus may somehow, again, through propaganda, be pushed to believe that this is not some kind of aggressive activity, but defence," suggested the director of the Russian and Belarusian Studies Programme.
Commenting on the state of the Belarusian army, Chornohor noted that he could not analyse the military component of the Armed Forces of Belarus.
"But in recent years, we have been monitoring two aspects. The first is that it is really a fragment of the Soviet army. And the second is that they have not isolated themselves and are constantly conducting joint exercises with Russia. So I would not say that these are absolutely worthless fighting forces. It is clear that they are incomparable to the Ukrainian army. But they are not ‘cardboard soldiers’ either," the expert concluded.
Earlier, AP reported that Belarus had deployed aviation and air defence troops on the border with Ukraine. The commander of the Belarusian Air Defence Forces, Major General Andrei Lukianovich, said on national television that anti-aircraft missiles and soldiers of the radio engineering corps had been deployed, calling it a "significant reinforcement of troops".
As reported, on 18 August, Alexander Lukashenko announced that he had sent almost a third of the Belarusian army to the border with Ukraine because of the alleged presence of more than 120,000 Ukrainian troops.
In this regard, the spokesperson for the State Border Guard Service, Andriy Demchenko, told Ukrinform that the situation on the border between Ukraine and Belarus remained unchanged.