• Ukraine is preparing for the possibility of another Russian invasion via Belarus amid military drills.
  • "We have to be ready here," the country's defense minister told CNN.
  • Analysts are skeptical that the exercises are cover for an attack or that Belarus would send its troops to join the war.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told CNN that his country's forces are preparing for the possibility of another Russian ground invasion via Belarus, which is closely allied with Moscow and has held military drills near Ukraine's northern border in recent days. 

"We have to be concerned," Reznikov said, adding that Belarus is not a "friendly neighbor."

Belarus has already been used as a launching pad for Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and has faced sanctions from Western countries as a result. The country's authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, is widely viewed as Russian President Vladimir Putin's puppet.

Belarusian and Russian troops participated in joint military drills in the days leading up to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February, and there are concerns that recent exercises could signal another assault is on the horizon.

"We have to be ready here," Reznikov told CNN.

There's also been some speculation that Belarus might send its troops into Ukraine to bolster Russia's war effort, but analysts are skeptical the drills are more than exercises. 

"Belarusian forces remain unlikely to attack Ukraine despite a snap Belarusian military readiness check on December 13," according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which has carefully tracked the conflict in Ukraine. "The exercise does not appear to be cover for concentrating Belarusian and/or Russian forces near jumping-off positions for an invasion of Ukraine," ISW added.

A recent assessment from ISW underscored that Russian officials have consistently conducted information operations suggesting that Belarusian ground forces "might join Russia's  invasion," while also emphasizing that this is likely part of an effort to pin Ukrainian forces at the Ukraine-Belarus border "to prevent them from reinforcing Ukrainian operations elsewhere in the theater."

The exercises force Ukraine to position troops along the border in preparation for the possibility of an attack, meaning that these troops are unavailable to support Ukraine's counteroffensives in the northeast and south, offensives which have seen Russia lose control of a substantial amount of territory in recent months.

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