Lukashenko Has Been Warned
- 1.06.2026, 9:15
It is not difficult to calculate Ukraine's response here.
The fact that Russia announces alleged intentions to attack the Kiev-Chop highway is obviously due to a desire to copy Ukraine's actions. Ukraine is already taking concrete steps to cut off Russia's so-called land corridor to Crimea - the Taganrog-Mariupol-Dzhankoy highway. But there is a very big difference here.
The land corridor in the form of the Taganrog-Mariupol-Dzhankoy road, built by Russia, is the only road from the so-called Russian mainland to occupied Crimea. At the same time, Ukraine has many road and railroad routes from east to west. Therefore, an attack on one of these roads, particularly Kiev-Chop, is not so critical and will not even come close to having the same significance as for Russia an attack by Ukraine along this land corridor.
There will be no special military or logistical effect from this. Ukraine will simply be forced to redirect that part of the traffic flow that goes along the Kiev-Chop highway to other roads, and there are many such options.
Automobile transport is very flexible. It is not railroad transport, where trains and cars can move only on the laid tracks. It is not a problem for a motor vehicle to move on another road. Besides, in order to attack the Kiev-Chop highway, it actually has to be done from the territory of Belarus. From the territory of Russia it is impossible to do it massively and seriously from the technical and military point of view. Russia can carry out individual strikes, as it is now actually shelling the whole of Ukraine. But in order to purposefully attack the road, it must be attacked en masse, continuously. And this is possible only from the territory of Belarus.
Belarus has not fully entered the war against Ukraine on the side of Russia. Yes, in 2022 it provided its territory for an attack from the north on Kiev, Chernigov, Sumy and Zhitomir regions. When that ground offensive was repulsed, Belarus sometimes made its airspace available for Russian weapons of mass destruction - drones, missiles of various classes, airplanes - to fly over to launch attacks. But in order to attack the Kiev-Chop highway, it is necessary for Belarus to actually fully enter the war.
Now we see that Ukraine has already issued a warning to the Belarusian authorities: if it fully enters the war, Ukraine has clear coordinates of about 500 targets that can be struck. In such a case, the entire already weak Belarusian economy could be destroyed in a matter of days. Therefore, from the military point of view, it is practically impossible to realize the plan of blocking the Kiev-Chop road.
If some individual shelling occurs, then immediately after the first such facts, almost all or almost all transport and logistics companies will redirect their flows along other roads. And that will be all. Ukraine will not experience any special problems from this. There may be certain delays in deliveries to some trade or production point, to some city, with regard to one or more units of transportation - trucks or cars. But nothing more than that.
Yes, a certain transportation shoulder may increase while logistics are reconfigured to other routes. But it will be only a pale shadow of the inconveniences Ukraine experienced at the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, when there were several months of fuel shortages and a slightly reduced range of products in retail chains. These were temporary inconveniences, but they occurred in the context of a full-scale invasion from three directions at once - from the north, east and south of Ukraine. This is a completely different scale.
Ukraine has long been adapted to the conditions of war, in particular with regard to the flexibility of logistical routes, logistics and transportation channels. This has been worked out even on railroad transportation. We see regular shelling of Ukrzaliznytsia facilities, railway stations and trains themselves, and mostly passenger trains. Yes, this leads to temporary delays in some flights, but no more than that. Then everything is restored: logistic routes are either temporarily redirected, or eventually fully return to the previous mode of operation. Apart from temporary inconvenience, this does not lead to anything, although, unfortunately, there are sometimes casualties. But an attack on one of the many highways, particularly Kiev-Chop, will not have a global impact.
If Russia tries to intensify its strikes, particularly on railroads or logistics infrastructure, it should be understood that militarily its resources are running out literally every day. We see that even for a relatively massive bombardment, like the latest strike on Kiev, it took Russia several weeks to accumulate various means of destruction - drones, missiles of various types and kinds. They've been accumulating them for weeks in order to launch one massive strike on a particular city or region.
To carry out continuous, systematic shelling of just one highway is no longer feasible for Russia, even militarily. It would mean that it would not be able to shell anything else in Ukraine. And Russia can't afford it, because its tactic of war is terrorism, that is, strikes primarily against places where people congregate: apartment buildings, neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, shopping centers, bazaars and markets. It is such objects that Russia is constantly shelling, because they can achieve the greatest losses, damage and psychological effect.
From a military point of view, Russia does not have sufficient resources and means to shell cars on the highway. And from the psychological point of view, it will not give the effect for Ukrainians, which they could count on.
At the same time, Ukraine will not keep silent either. If systematic shelling of Ukraine, in particular of highways, starts from the territory of Belarus, the Ukrainian response will not be long in coming. For Belarus, it can very quickly end up extremely deplorable. I think the Belarusian authorities clearly understand this, because it is not difficult to calculate both Ukraine's response and the consequences of this response for Belarus itself.
Andrei Novak, "Glavred".