Ukrainian Missile Hits Belarus as Putin Ally Moves to War Footing: Report

A Ukrainian S-300 missile reportedly landed in Belarusian territory Thursday, according to Belarus' defense ministry.

The missile landed near the city of Ivanovo in the Brest region in the country, Russian state-owned news agency TASS reported, citing the press service of the Belarusian Defense Ministry, which added that the missile fell between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. local time.

Belarus' air defenses took down the missile near the village of Harbacha in the Brest region, which is located around nine miles from the Ukrainian border, the Belarusian defense ministry said.

"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 ministry said in a statement.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a staunch ally of Russian President Vlaidimir Putin, was "immediately" informed of the incident, while investigators and military service members were dispatched to the scene, according to The Moscow Times. There were no reports of deaths or injuries at the moment.

Oleg Konovalov, the military commissar of the Brest region, assured local residents in a video posted by the state-run BelTA news agency that they had "absolutely nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, these things happen."

It has been reportedly assumed that the S-300 missile accidentally fell in Belarusian territory the same way that a Russian-made missile landed in NATO member Poland in November, raising concerns about a possible escalation of the Russian war going beyond Ukrainian borders.

Konovalvo on Thursday made a comparison between those two incidents. However, it is unknown whether Belarus considers it a Ukrainian threat.

Both Russia and Ukraine use S-300 missiles, which is a Soviet era defense system, but for different purposes, according to Reuters. Ukraine uses the defense system to intercept incoming Russian missiles, while Moscow appears to use it to attack targets on the ground.

The Belarusian military has not taken part in the invasion of Ukraine so far, even though the military had joint drills with Russian forces long before the war began on February 24. In addition, Lukashenko warned Ukraine against approaching "even a meter of our territory with their dirty hands," according to The Moscow Times.

Lukashenko has been focused on his country's military readiness as he recently met with Putin in Minsk to have security-related discussions, claiming that "the current situation and threats" caused by the war in Ukraine justified preparing Belarusian forces for combat and re-deploying them closer to the border.

"If you want peace, prepare for war. It was not invented by me and not by you either," Lukashenko said during the meeting, according to an official report. "By doing this, I want to answer all sorts of rumors that appear in our society, especially on the internet, about the movement of the armed forces of Belarus and the joint-movement of the armed forces of Belarus and Russia."

The Belarusian leader also said that his country will continue to have joint drills with Russia, which will now be carried out "on a large scale" given the situation in Ukraine.

"We are conducting exercises on our territory," said Lukashenko. "We are moving both the joint-grouping of armed forces and our armed forces to where we see fit. Period. No other plan, no conspiracy theories."

Newsweek reached out to the Ukrainian and Russian foreign affairs ministry for comment.