As Belarus has ratcheted up its messaging about plans to offer refuge — and possibly work — to Wagner group mercenaries after a failed rebellion in Russia, Ukrainian forces say they are ready for any potential threat from their neighbor to the north.
In recent days, Ukrainian officials have tried to tamp down concerns about the Wagner forces, who until recently were fighting for Russia in Ukraine, while heralding preparations for their possible arrival. President Volodymyr Zelensky — who on Saturday was hosting Spain’s prime minister as part of his continuing diplomatic push — nodded to plans for reinforcing the border in his nightly address on Friday and top commanders have emphasized that no current threat had been found.
Mr. Zelensky indicated that Ukrainian intelligence was monitoring the situation closely, adding, “We very carefully analyze every fact and any prospects in all directions.” Ukraine’s top generals were “instructed to strengthen the northern direction — to guarantee peace,” he said.
This week, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, the Kremlin-aligned autocratic leader of Belarus, invited members of the Wagner group who had participated in a rebellion against Russian forces to relocate to an “abandoned” military base in his country. New satellite imagery from Thursday and Friday, analyzed by The New York Times, shows that more than 250 tents, enough to house thousands of troops, have been erected in the past five days at an unused base.
Mr. Lukashenko also said that Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner group, had arrived in Belarus after the failed rebellion against Russian forces. But Mr. Prigozhin has not been heard from publicly in a week, and his whereabouts have not been independently confirmed.
The invitation has made many in Ukraine once again wary of Belarus and has drawn condemnation and warnings from NATO leaders about the potential threat on their doorstep from a group that has earned a reputation for ruthless violence.
Belarus was a key staging point for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Russian troops poured across the border before withdrawing across it months later.
Russia continues to use Belarus as a training ground for its forces and to launch airstrikes on Ukraine. But there are no Russian offensive units in Belarus, and there has been little indication that Mr. Lukashenko would deploy Belarusian troops to Ukraine.
Lt. Gen. Serhiy Nayev, the commander of Ukraine’s joint forces, said in a Friday post on the messaging app Telegram that there was currently no direct threat of an offensive operation of ground forces from Belarus.
“However, if the level of threat rises, the buildup of forces and means, as well as other practical measures to boost the group’s defensive capabilities, are foreseen,” he said.
Mr. Lukashenko, in an address on Friday commemorating Belarus’s Independence Day and published by the state news agency Belta, said that he was open to the idea of Wagner mercenaries training Belarusian troops, but said that they had not yet arrived in the country.
“And if their instructors, as I already told them, come and pass on combat experience to us, we will accept this experience,” he said. Mr. Lukashenko, who has increasingly allowed Belarus to become a vassal state of Russia, including by allowing Moscow to station tactical nuclear weapons in his country, may be hoping to reclaim some of his eroding power by making the deal to host Wagner troops, analysts say.
In his Friday speech, Mr. Lukashenko said that he was “certain that we will never have to use them while they are here,” referring to the weapons. “And no enemy will ever set foot on our land.”
As Mr. Zelensky expressed confidence about his country’s preparations for a potential threat from the north, he was also laying the groundwork on longer-term security for his country, including economically.
After a meeting with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain in Kyiv, Mr. Zelensky emphasized his desire for continued support from the European Union and for membership in the bloc, noting the host of European leaders and officials who have visited Ukraine’s capital.
“All these visits are very important to strengthen support, to strengthen our people on the battlefield, strengthen our economy, everything where we need your support,” Mr. Zelensky told the Spanish leader.
Mr. Sánchez, who is beginning a six-month term as the European Union’s rotating president, delivered a speech to the Ukrainian Parliament to mark the start of his presidency. “Europe is with you, and you are one with Europe,” he said.
Mr. Zelensky told Spanish journalists ahead of the visit that the next six months would be a crucial time for talks about Ukrainian ascension to the bloc. Ukraine applied for E.U. membership in February 2022 and was granted candidate status that June.
The two leaders signed a joint declaration on Saturday that confirmed Spain’s support for Ukraine’s candidacy, “which will be one of the priorities of its presidency in the E.U.,” the document read.
In other news:
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Two staff members were killed on Friday morning in a Russian strike on a school in the town of Serhiivka, in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, the local military administration said in a statement on Saturday. Four other people were injured. Photographs shared on Telegram showed a partly destroyed building.
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Two children were injured on Saturday morning in Russian shelling in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson, according to the head of the regional military administration. “A nine-year-old girl and a fifteen-year-old boy were wounded in the shelling,” Oleksandr Prokudin said in a post on Telegram. “They are being provided with medical assistance.”
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President Zelensky, in an interview with Spanish journalists posted online on Saturday, warned again of fears of a potential disaster at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant saying there were hundreds of soldiers at the site and heavy weapons on the plant’s territory.
“I believe that when there are mines and weapons, there is a danger,” he told the reporters, and emphasized that intelligence reports indicate Russia’s had plans to cause a nuclear incident there.
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Ukrainian forces have “almost certainly” been moving personnel to the east bank of the Dnipro River near the Antonovskiy Bridge in the Kherson region and fighting has intensified there since last week, the British Defense Ministry said Saturday. Boats carrying Ukrainian soldiers have been spotted around the bridge and Ukrainian forces appear to be seizing more of the river islands and swampy banks around the city of Kherson in a possible expansion of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, according to residents and Russian military bloggers this week.
Valerie Hopkins contributed reporting.
