Expert: Strikes On Western Ukraine Could Have Been Coordinated From Belarus

• 13.05.2026, 17:18

There's another feature of today's offense.

Russia has become more active in using the territory of Belarus to control attack drones during the current massive attack on the west of Ukraine. A serviceman of the AFU Territorial Defense Forces, military expert Alexander Musienko said this in a commentary to the correspondent of UNIAN.

The military officer noted that during the so-called "three-day truce" on May 9-11, which Russia also violated, it used attack drones like Shahed and other types of drones much less frequently because it was accumulating them.

"This accumulative effect they are now using to stretch out attacks. Perhaps if there had been no ceasefire and there had been attacks, including on May 9 on Russian territory, Russia would have retaliated, but in smaller numbers, because it would not have accumulated in those three days. But they have been accumulating, and now we see the attacks," Musienko noted.

Another feature of the current massive attack is that Russian attack drones can now probably be controlled from the territory of Belarus.

"It is obvious that the information that was available earlier that Russia uses the military infrastructure of Belarus - it uses it for a reason and probably installs antennas and repeaters on the territory of Belarus, which provide direct movement of drones," the expert said.

He noted that the Russian drone attacks are likely to be controlled from the territory of Belarus. It cannot be excluded that earlier it was not the object of frequent massive strikes because of some agreements of the Russians with the previous Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

"But I would still say that this is just an attempt to expand the scale of strikes, an attempt to reach those places where Russia seemed to reach less often before. And this is actually about simply expanding the geography of strikes," Musiyenko noted.