NV analyzes whether Belarusian army can launch real offensive on Kyiv
Belarus dictator Aleksander Lukashenko during military drills (Photo: REUTERS re)
Whether the Belarusian army is capable of confronting the Ukrainian Armed Forces and whether Lukashenko will dare to join forces with Putin was analyzed in detail by NV together with military experts on May 26.
On the morning of May 18, Ukrainian satellite monitoring operators recorded a convoy of special vehicles on the M1 highway near the Belarusian city of Barysaw, east of Minsk. Heavy trucks with lead-lined containers moved east toward the Russian border, escorted by military police.
That same day, Belarusian Defense Ministry announced the start of joint exercises with Russia on the "combat use" of tactical nuclear weapons. Moscow involved its own strategic nuclear forces, as well as 64,000 military personnel, 200 missile launchers, and submarines.
Something similar has happened before: in February 2022, Russia conducted prolonged exercises on Belarusian territory and then launched an offensive on Kyiv from there.
Since then, Ukraine's attention has been constantly riveted to the north. Especially since self-proclaimed President Aleksander Lukashenko regularly conducts exercises involving Russians, announcing rotations and "targeted" mobilizations. According to military experts, this game indicates not the aggressiveness of the Belarusian regime, but rather official Minsk's attempt to avoid intervening in the war against Ukraine.
"It is like Santa Barbara: the Kremlin brotherhood desperately wants to involve the Belarusian army, if not in an open invasion, then at least in some demonstrative actions," domestic military expert Victor Kevliuk explained to NV.
However, in May of this year, simultaneously with the Russian-Belarusian exercises, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave the task of strengthening defenses in the northern direction, as the threat took on real features. He also warned Minsk about the consequences of possible provocations.
And although now, according to domestic intelligence, a Belarusian strike force capable of acting against Ukraine does not exist, local administrations in northern border areas have begun emphasizing measures to organize the perimeter defense of individual cities in their oblasts.
So what is actually looming from the north? A real threat or a new episode of "Santa Barbara"?
Lukashenko's scarecrow
An army preparing for an offensive leaves traces that cannot be hidden in today's digital world. Field hospitals with blood and medicine supplies, ammunition and fuel depots, field command posts, and a changed radio communication regime are required. According to Kevliuk, none of this is happening on the Belarusian side — satellite imagery, reports from foreign intelligence, and the border service all record one thing: there is no deployment of strike groups. Signals intelligence "should have seen it, but didn't." The State Border Guard Service and the 15th Army Corps deployed in the north confirmed that no troop accumulation has been recorded on the Belarusian side.
Instead, Belarus, as Kevliuk emphasized, is doing the opposite of what an army does before an attack: it is mining its own border strip and building up engineering obstacles on the border with Ukraine. Two oil refineries within the reach of Ukrainian Armed Forces' strikes stand as they were, and no one is dispersing their reserves.
Military analyst Kostyantyn Mashovets calculated: the entire Belarusian military is a miniaturized copy of a late-Soviet or one modern Russian combined arms army: 63,000 to 65,000 troops, of which only 26,000 to 28,000 belong to the ground forces.
Lukashenko's forces are divided into two operational commands, each at the level of a reduced corps. A third is still being formed. The equipment is late-Soviet: T-72B tanks, with about 455 combat-ready out of 590 units, Soviet-era artillery, and 84 combat aircraft.
Military observer Oleksandr Kovalenko translates these numbers into the language of operations: to threaten Ukraine, Russia would have to concentrate at least 40,000 troops in Belarus, and for a "Kyiv 2.0" operation — over 100,000. Currently, near Pokrovsk alone, the Russians maintain 170,000 of their troops and have been unable to advance faster than 1 km per week for two years.
Kevliuk specified that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have about 1 million troops ready for combat at this very moment, whereas in Belarus, even according to Lukashenko's optimistic estimates, about 70,000 people are "under arms." Therefore, in the analyst's opinion, two or three combat brigades of the Defense Forces are capable of putting an end to the Belarusian issue. Moreover, Lukashenko's army is not eager to meet the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the battlefield.
Lukashenko occasionally tries to demonstrate to the world another "trump card" of his — nuclear weapons. However, as Kevliuk reminded, they do not actually exist, because when the U.S. kept its arsenal of mass destruction in Germany, Germany itself did not become a nuclear state as a result. The same story applies to Russian "nukes" in Belarus: what is presented as their "deployment" is actually a disposal route. 800 tactical munitions that have reached the end of their service life are traveling from Russia to Belarus for dismantling.
Even if one imagines that Moscow handed over something combat-ready to Minsk, the 257-kilogram container with the warhead has seven levels of locking, and the firing tables, according to Kevliuk, "are top secret and are not sold in Soyuzdruk newsstands."
Belarusian military has no practical experience with this munitions. And in that case, the greatest threat from a nuclear strike will be to those who risk launching it.
"No one can guarantee right now that it will even work," Kevliuk explained.
An offensive against NATO?
Russians are dying at the front faster than they can recruit new volunteers to fight against Ukraine. Under these conditions, Kevliuk explained, the Kremlin needs "to create the appearance of pressure using low-budget means, throwing dust in the eyes of both Ukraine and Western partners." This is exactly what Lukashenko is doing. The goal is specific: to force the Ukrainian Armed Forces to pull reserves to the north, easing the Russian occupiers' advance in the Pokrovsk, Kostiantynivka, and Orikhiv directions.
But the Kremlin's problem is deeper — according to Kovalenko, the topic of Ukraine is becoming toxic even inside Russia.
"They are starting to bicker among themselves. Putin needs to get distracted, to show the electorate that they are fighting NATO countries and winning," the expert explained. Therefore, if Russia does risk something more than a simulation involving Belarus, it will be an offensive against the most vulnerable NATO countries — "to capture them quickly and demonstrate it as a victory."
In Kovalenko's opinion, this could be a combined strike against all three Baltic countries: an offensive through Lithuania's so-called Suwalki Gap from Belarus to the Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea, and a strike from the territory of the Leningrad Military District into Estonia and Latvia.
Playing until the end of the war
However, Belarus is already operating as a full-fledged staging ground for the Russian army.
Specifically, Russian operators control strike Shaheds through a mesh network of relay stations located on Belarusian territory in attacks on Ukraine.
In February 2026, HUR and the Digital Transformation Ministry dismantled this network. But by May, during a massive attack involving 800 drones, the Russians began rebuilding it.
Additionally, infrastructure for the Oreshnik intermediate-range missile system has been deployed at the former Krychaw-6 airfield in Belarus. Official Minsk is also building roads to the Ukrainian border and equipping artillery positions, as Zelenskyy mentioned on April 17. Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg, the U.S. is pressuring Kyiv to lift sanctions on Belarusian potash. In return, to appease Washington, Lukashenko is releasing political prisoners in batches.
However, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the leader of the Belarusian opposition, warned: "Any easing of sanctions risks fueling Russia's war machine."
Ukraine responds to Lukashenko's actions with defensive structures: the "Zelenskyy line" is being built in the north — a continuous echeloned defense from the Kyiv Reservoir to Sumy, up to 100 km deep. Kevliuk evaluates it positively: the swampy, forested terrain and the Prypiat riverbed are utilized just like the Mannerheim Line in Karelia. "There are literally a couple of directions there where a breakthrough could be attempted. But it will be so expensive that the Belarusian Armed Forces will run out in a week," the expert adds.
Ukraine's allies are working in sync: Poland is completing the "Eastern Shield" line along the border with Kaliningrad and Belarus, and Germany has deployed its tank brigade to Lithuania — this is the Bundeswehr's first permanent deployment outside the country since World War II.
Kovalenko, however, urged to stay cautious. There is no threat right now, but Belarus, according to him, is a "litmus test": if troop deployment begins there, a reaction will be necessary at a certain level.
In turn, Kevliuk predicted that the Kremlin will try to play the "Belarusian card" until the end of the war. Because it is advantageous for Moscow to keep Ukraine in suspense.
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