Tensions Rise as Belarus Blames Ukraine for Downed Missile on Border—Report

Tensions rose on Friday as Belarus blamed Ukraine for a downed missile on its border, suggesting that the incident could be a provocation by Ukraine's armed forces.

The S-300 missile reportedly landed between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. local time in the Brest region, officials aid. The Belarusian Defense Ministry said Belarus' air defenses took down the missile near the village of Gorbakha in the Brest region, which is located around 9 miles from the Ukraine's northern border.

It fell as Russian forces conducted a massive series of missile strikes against Ukrainian critical infrastructure on Thursday.

"Fragments were found in an agricultural field [...] During the verification process, it was established that the wreckage belongs to an S-300 anti-aircraft guided missile fired from the territory of Ukraine," the Belarusian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Responding to the incident, Colonel Kirill Kazantsev, chief of Belarus' Anti-Aircraft Missile Forces Department, said Minsk was not ruling out the possibility of a deliberate provocation by the armed forces of Ukraine.

"As was said earlier, the air defense systems hit a target in Ivanovo District that arrived from the Ukrainian side. Combat crews worked out as they were supposed to. Yet, questions about this incident remain," Kazantsev was quoted by news agency BELTA as saying, citing the Defense Ministry of Belarus.

According to Kazantsev, the Defense Ministry is considering two possibilities: an unintentional launch of the anti-aircraft guided missile because of poor crew training or a missile malfunction, or a deliberate provocation of the Ukraine's armed forces.

In the aftermath of the incident, Belarus summoned Ukraine's ambassador to the Foreign Ministry in Minsk to file a formal protest.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry said the Kremlin has "desperate and persistent aspirations" to involve Belarus in its war against Kyiv and noted that this incident occurred during Russian missile strikes on Ukraine.

"In this regard, the Ukrainian side does not exclude a deliberate provocation by the terrorist state of Russia, which laid such a route for its cruise missiles in order to provoke their interception in the airspace over the territory of Belarus," the ministry said in a statement.

Ukraine has said it was prepared to investigate the incident with the help of experts from nations that do not support "the terrorist state of Russia."

As Russia's Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko were meeting in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, troops from both countries were conducting military drills in Belarus, which Ukrainian leaders fear may be used as a smokescreen to prepare a real invasion of Ukraine from the north by a joint force.

Newsweek has contacted the foreign ministries of Ukraine and Belarus for comment.

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