This opinion was expressed in a commentary for Ukrinform by Yaroslav Chornohor, director of the Russian and Belarusian Studies Program of the Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism” and Doctor of History.

“So far, as of today, this is only an information and psycho-operational operation on the part of Belarus. Of course, we cannot rule out that Putin will ‘put pressure’ on Lukashenko and he will take more concrete measures, not just demonstrations. Therefore, we must be prepared for any development of events,” Chornohor said.

According to him, it would logically not be profitable for Belarus to enter into a full-scale war. “But it is clear that they have such close relations with Putin that if Lukashenko applies pressure, he simply has to react somehow,” Chornohor said.

In this context, he noted that an additional trigger could be a video shared on social media of a Ukrainian tank flying a white-red-white Belarusian flag in the Kursk region. According to the expert, the Belarusian dictator could “cling to it and say, this is our national security, so we will somehow enter this war.”

Regarding the anti-war sentiment among the population in Belarus, Chornohor noted that there are no reliable sociological data.

“All we know is either distorted information, the subjective views of the democratic forces in Belarus and their sociologists, or our imagination. It is believed that Belarusians are allegedly not inclined to war (with Ukraine)… And what are people anyway if they are not first ‘pumped up’ with propaganda, as, for example, in Russia? We cannot rule out that somehow, again through propaganda, Belarus could be made to believe that this is not some kind of aggressive act, but defense,” said the director of the Russian and Belarusian Studies Program.

Commenting on the state of the Belarusian army, Chornohor noted that he could not analyze the military component of the Belarusian armed forces.

“But in recent years we have observed two aspects. Firstly, that this is actually a fragment of the Soviet army. And secondly, that they have not isolated themselves and are constantly conducting joint exercises with Russia. So I would not say that these are absolutely worthless forces. It is clear that they are not comparable with the Ukrainian army. But they are not ‘cardboard soldiers’ either,” the expert concluded.

AP had previously reported that Belarus had deployed air and air defense troops on the border with Ukraine. The commander of the Belarusian Air Defense Forces, Major General Andrei Lukyanovich, said on national television that anti-aircraft missiles and soldiers from the radio engineering corps had been deployed and spoke of a “significant troop reinforcement.”

As reported, on August 18, Alexander Lukashenko announced that he had sent almost a third of the Belarusian army to the border with Ukraine due to the alleged presence of more than 120,000 Ukrainian soldiers.

In this regard, the spokesman for the State Border Guard Service, Andriy Demchenko, told Ukrinform that nothing had changed on the border between Ukraine and Belarus.