“It disrupted Russia's plans": military expert on China-Belarus military drills

Military expert, co-chairman of the Pravova Sprava NGO Dmytro Sniehyryov told this on the Espreso TV channel.

“The head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, previously reported on a possible escalation of the situation in the north. At the time, he was talking about Kharkiv and Sumy regions, but the possibility of destabilizing the situation on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border was not ruled out. The joint Chinese-Belarusian exercises to some extent reduced tensions on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border. This significantly disrupted the plans of the Russian forces to destabilize the situation on this front line. The main goal of the occupation army was to pull back the operational reserves of the Ukrainian Defense Forces to cover this area and prevent the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from engaging those units that are concentrated in this area in combat operations in the most problematic areas of the front, in particular in the Donetsk and Kharkiv sectors,” he said.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Volyn, where he inspected the construction of fortifications and held a meeting on the security of the northern regions. According to Sniehyryov, this is not a formality.

“We continue to check the condition of engineering and fortification structures not only directly on the line of contact - we are talking about Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia directions, but also in the north,” the military expert added.

• On July 6, 2024, a large transport plane from the People's Republic of China landed for the first time in history at the Belarusian military airfield Baranovichi.

• On July 8, the Ministry of Defense of Belarus announced that joint military exercises between the state and China had begun at the Brest training ground, which is located near the borders with Ukraine and Poland.

• Subsequently, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said that the joint military exercises between his country and Belarus were conducted in accordance with the annual cooperation plan and were not directed against other states.