Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko told leading Russian media in a recent interview that Ukraine has deployed a whopping 120,000 troops along the border, which adds context to Belarus’ earlier reported buildup there that was analyzed here last week. This number is surprising since it suggests that Ukraine isn’t anywhere near running out of troops like some in the Alt-Media Community have speculated over the past two years might soon happen.
While it’s true that resistance to Ukraine’s forcible conscription policy has increased since the age of conscription was dropped to 25 from 28 this spring, and some forces were diverted from Donbass to Kursk, this large number shows that there are still plenty of troops available that haven’t yet begun to fight. It’s also worth noting that this is twelve times the number that participated in Ukraine’s sneak attack against Russia’s Kursk Region according to the Wall Street Journal.
Battles of been raging inside of Russia’s borders for two weeks already as part of Zelensky’s newly declared goal of carving out Ukraine’s own “buffer zone” along the lines of what Russia has sought to do in Ukraine’s Kharkov Region since early May. It’s therefore frightening to imagine what the Ukrainian force on Belarus’ southern border could hypothetically achieve if they crossed the frontier. Lukashenko reassured his interlocutor that it’s heavily mined though so perhaps a repeat of Kursk isn’t possible.
Nevertheless, it’s extremely unlikely that Ukraine will keep that many troops in reserve indefinitely, especially as Russia continues gaining ground in Donbass. They could also be redeployed to Kursk to fortify Ukraine’s gains there or even as part of another sneak attack against a different Russian region like Bryansk or Belgorod. The reason why they’ve yet to be sent to any of those fronts is due to Ukraine’s fear of a joint Russian-Belarusian invasion from the latter’s Gomel Region.
Lukashenko said that this was the reason that Ukraine shared for its military buildup along their frontier, which he blamed on the US maliciously feeding them false intelligence about his side’s intentions. If Ukraine has no secret plans to invade Belarus and is confident in what Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper reported earlier this year about how NATO would conventionally intervene in Ukraine’s support if Belarus invades, then it might soon begin redeploying some of these troops to those other fronts.
That can’t be taken for granted though, but in any case, the point is that Ukraine still has a whopping 120,000 troops that haven’t yet begun to fight. This means that Russia mustn’t let its guard down in Bryansk or Belgorod Regions, nor must it assume that a breakthrough in Donbass and Kursk is inevitable due to Ukraine’s supposedly imminent military collapse there. It should also remain prepared for the possibility of a Ukrainian sneak attack against Belarus.
To be clear, no such sneak attacks or reinforcements might materialize, or they might also not make a difference if they do. That said, it would be a mistake for Russia to ignore this large agglomeration of forces since that could greatly raise the chances that they’d indeed be effective if deployed to battle. It remains to be seen what their future role will be, but observers should closely monitor all movements along that front for signs that some of them might finally be about to enter the fight.
