President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko congratulated the Ukrainian people on Independence Day and wished "a peaceful sky, tolerance, courage, strength and success in restoring a decent life." Meanwhile, Ukrainian cities are constantly shelled from Belarusian territory. The Russian troops advancing on Ukraine were also moving from Belarus.
“I am convinced that today's contradictions will not be able to destroy the centuries-old foundation of sincere good neighborly relations between the peoples of the two countries. Belarus will continue to stand for the preservation of harmony, the development of friendly, mutually respectful contacts at all levels,” Lukashenka’s message of congratulations reads.
Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of Vladimir Zelensky's office, called Lukashenka's wish cynical. “We will talk about the shades of a peaceful sky with this gentleman after Russia loses the war,” he said on air of the Vozdukh program, dedicated to the six months of the war. – It would be better for Lukashenka not to think about Ukraine at all. Because he is an accomplice in a war crime and provided the territory and airfields of Belarus for strikes against Ukraine and the killing of Ukrainian citizens.”
Ukrainian authorities and other countries consider Belarus an accomplice of Russia in the war. Lukashenka openly expressed support for Russia, and also justified aggressive actions by the fact that an attack was allegedly being prepared against Belarus and Russia. He claimed that before the start of the war, the West deployed four divisions on the border and aimed Tochki-U at Russia and Belarus from two positions.
Only on August 21, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that the movement of air defense systems of the Russian Federation to the territory of Belarus was observed in the Volyn and Polesye directions. “The threat of missile and air strikes by the enemy from the territory and from the airspace of this country continues to exist,” the message said.
On August 17, Colonel Yuri Ignat, spokesman for the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said that Russia could “congratulate” Ukraine on Independence Day with rocket fire from Belarus. According to him, there is certain intelligence data and there is information in open sources that the enemy is building up his forces on Belarusian territory. “Russia used the territory of Belarus from the first days of full-scale aggression and struck from there. Therefore, we must definitely prepare, we have different information from the GUR, and other services have some information about these movements. We will soon have a big holiday – Independence Day, it is clear that the enemy always uses such dates for “congratulations”, we must be ready for this, ”Ignat said.
