Nasha Niva said on Thursday that it had been told by sources that Russia was using the tank cars to transport troops in order to “mislead satellite and visual monitoring” of the shipments. It added that it didn’t know whether military equipment and ammunition were also being transported to Belarus in this way, according to a translation of the Belarusian language report.
A spokesperson for Nasha Niva told Newsweek: “It is hard to assess if these are pseudo-maneuvers to make Ukraine keep an army reserve in the north or a preparation to attack Ukraine once more from Belarus. We just have this fact of secret transports in a weird way.”
The story was shared on social and Ukrainian media, although the claims haven’t been verified.
When contacted by Newsweek, the Belarusian Hajun Project, which monitors military activity within the territory of Belarus, referred to its tweet that said as yet: “We have no reason to believe that this information is true, as we have no confirmation.”
“We also see no expediency of such transportation,” it said. “Anyway, there is still a stage of unloading the trains, and Russians also need somewhere to live, which means that the presence of the Russian military will be noticed by local residents or via satellite images.”
Meanwhile, defense analyst Konrad Muzyka, from Rochan Consulting, said that there were daily reports about Russian passenger cars arriving in Belarus with troops so it wasn’t clear why tanker cars would be needed.
“Even if they want to mask the scale of the deployment, they probably won’t be able to hide increased presence on training grounds,” he told Newsweek, as “satellites will find them there.”
However, the report comes as questions mount over what role Belarus might play in Putin’s invasion in the coming months. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv must “be ready” at its border with Belarus as Ukraine’s air force command last week warned there could be missile attacks from the country.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has so far avoided direct involvement in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, although he allowed his ally to use Belarus’ territory as a staging post early in the war for a move on Kyiv.
Belarusian–Russian military cooperation has intensified since the establishment of a joint force in October 2022. Belarusian joint military exercises were held this week as troops and equipment continue to be transported from Russia into Belarus.
“Belarusian military involvement in a repeat invasion of Ukraine from the north would increase the likelihood of Ukrainian armed forces conducting retaliatory, if not pre-emptive, artillery, missile and air strikes on military targets in southern Belarus,” Alex Kokcharov, a country risk analyst, told Newsweek.
“The overt involvement of Belarusian forces in offensive operations against Ukraine would likely trigger Ukrainian strikes and special forces operations against military targets on Belarusian territory,” he added.
