The ISW made the assessment in its latest report on the war in Ukraine, published on Tuesday night.
The US experts wrote: “Belarusian forces remain unlikely to attack Ukraine despite a snap Belarusian military readiness check on December 13.”
The ISW noted that Belarusian strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko ordered a snap combat readiness inspection of the Belarusian army on Tuesday.
According to the Washington-based think tank, “the exercise does not appear to be cover for concentrating Belarusian and/or Russian forces near jumping-off positions for an invasion of Ukraine.”
The drills involve “Belarusian elements deploying to training grounds across Belarus, conducting engineering tasks, and practicing crossing the Neman and Berezina rivers (which are over 170 km and 70 km away from the Belarusian-Ukrainian border, respectively)," the ISW said.
The US experts noted that social media footage posted on Tuesday “showed a column of likely Belarusian infantry fighting vehicles and trucks reportedly moving from Kolodishchi (just east of Minsk) toward Hatava (6 km south of Minsk).”
In addition, Belarusian forces “reportedly deployed 25 BTR-80s and 30 trucks with personnel toward Malaryta, Brest (about 15 km from Ukraine) on December 13,” while “Russian T-80 tanks reportedly deployed from the Obuz-Lesnovsky Training Ground in Brest, Belarus, to the Brest Training Ground also in Brest (about 30 km from the Belarusian-Ukrainian Border) around December 12,” the ISW reported.
It added that Russia reportedly deployed “three MiG-31K interceptors to the Belarusian airfield in Machulishchy on December 13.”
According to the US think tank, such deployments “are likely part of ongoing Russian information operations suggesting that Belarusian conventional ground forces might join Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
However, the ISW reiterated its previous assessments that Belarus "is extraordinarily unlikely to invade Ukraine in the foreseeable future.”
Ukraine needs more guns: Kuleba
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has called on the West to provide his country with 150mm artillery to help counter Russian attacks and continue counteroffensive operations, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Kuleba told foreign reporters in Kyiv, as quoted by PAP: “An important need I want to highlight is additional 155mm artillery and ammunition for it. This war is largely an artillery war and Ukraine needs more guns to be able to stop Russia’s attack and continue the counteroffensive."
Generators as important as weapons: Zelensky
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that “generators are as important as armour” as Ukraine seeks to survive the winter amid Russia’s energy terror, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper reported on its website.
Zelensky stated that his country needed an additional EUR 800 million to get through the winter and EUR 1.5 billion to repair its energy grid following Russian air strikes.
The Ukrainian president was speaking via video link to an aid conference in Paris on Tuesday that raised over EUR 1 billion in immediate winter assistance to his country.
Patriots for Ukraine?
Meanwhile, US officials stated on Wednesday that the Pentagon was “finalizing plans to send Patriot missile defense systems to Ukraine,” the ISW reported.
On the frontlines, Russian forces conducted “limited counterattacks” near Svatove and Kreminna in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region; they also made “marginal advances” within Bakhmut and continued ground assaults near Avdiivka and Vuhledar, in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province, the US think tank said on Tuesday night.
The ISW further reported that Russian troops “may be withdrawing from certain areas south of the Dnipro River as they continue fortifying rear positions in occupied Kherson Oblast” in southern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Ukraine said it on Tuesday damaged a key bridge outside the Russian-occupied southern city of Melitopol, The Guardian reported.
The announcement came two days after Ukrainian forces struck a Russian barracks in Melitopol with HIMARS missiles, causing “substantial damage and casualties,” the UK newspaper added.
Wednesday is day 294 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: understandingwar.org, PAP, The Guardian