Belarus is preparing for escalation and talking of "preventive measures" against Ukraine and NATO - General Staff

Brigadier General Oleksii Hromov, Deputy Head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, made the statement at a briefing on October 27.

"Russian and Belarusian armed forces take actions that suggest systematic preparation for escalation. According to the available intelligence, the officers of the Russian armed forces are assessing the readiness of the military units of the Grodnetsk, Brest and Gomel regions of Belarus," Hromov said.

According to him, the plan is to assess combat readiness of those regions of Western Belarus under the guise of training.

"The military-political leadership is holding meetings with representatives of labor collectives where they promote the agenda of the need to carry out "preventive actions" against the collective enemy of Ukraine and NATO," Hromov emphasized.

• On October 25, Pavlo Klimkin, a diplomat and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, noted that, it is necessary to clearly and carefully define the involvement of Belarus in terms of international law, so Belarusian leadership cannot escape the responsibility for its assistance in Russian aggression.