The strip along the Ukrainian-Russian and Ukrainian-Belarusian border will be expanded to 2 km and mined. This was reported on February 25 by the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine in its Telegram channel.

“It will practically be a mined area,” the service reports.

According to the report, these changes were documented in the law «On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts on the Protection of the State Border.» It is noted that it will allow to resolve the issues of involving the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), the National Guard and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the country to carry out tasks to protect the border in a conflict in the country.

Earlier, on February 21, Colonel Valery Revenko, Assistant Minister of Defense of Belarus for International Military Cooperation, said that Minsk assesses the situation around the country as a crisis, predicting the presence of direct threats to military security. According to him, a significant grouping of the Ukrainian army is concentrated on the border of Ukraine and Belarus.

Before that, on February 16, it was reported that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko declared his readiness to fight with Ukraine only in case of aggression against Minsk. He added that this applies not only to Ukraine, but also to others. Lukashenka recalled that Moscow is an ally of Minsk. The countries have a common military group, but the Russian Federation has never asked Belarus to start military operations against Ukraine, the Belarusian leader added.

On December 11, 2022, the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Belarus, First Deputy Minister of Defense Viktor Gulevich stressed that the border with Ukraine is of greatest concern to Minsk. According to him, the border service of the republic fixes the violation of the border between the two countries from the Ukrainian side.