Belarusian authorities play rough, soldier-style – Ukrainian ambassador on drone “incident”

February 3, BPN. Ukrainian Ambassador to Belarus Ihor Kyzym considers the handling of the incident with the Ukrainian drone, which allegedly violated the airspace of Belarus, as “rude.”

On his Facebook page, the diplomat wrote that just before he left the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, where he had been summoned for a note of protest, “a Belarusian reporter from BT 1 (I learned later that her name was Ksenija) rushed towards me.” She wondered “if this was espionage.”

“The fact that she showed up at the MFA and knew in advance the issues that we discussed with our Belarusian colleagues is already unusual in itself and does not do honour to the diplomatic office,” says Kyzym. “That’s why I consider it a premeditated provocation. All the more so because at the same time an assistant military attaché was also summoned to the Ministry of Defense and a reporter of the same TV channel was also awaiting him with the same question.”

Ukrainian diplomat does not understand why Belarusian authorities needed it.

He stated that on the day of the “incident” (according to the Belarusian side, the border violation took place in the morning of January 24), the Ukrainian armed forces “did not use drones” in the area in question, “all the more, as far as we know, these are Orlan drones, which are used only by Russia and Belarus.”

The ambassador also pointed to special mechanisms for resolving such incidents, as stipulated in the bilateral agreement on the activities of border commissioners. Kyzym expressed bewilderment as to why the agreement should have been ignored, the ambassador summoned and the situation made public.

“Isn’t it connected with the fact that almost at the same time the new Russian Ambassador to Belarus, Boris Gryzlov, had a meeting with Lukašenka? Well, for the background. There has to be something to justify the “threat from the south” and to ask for some kind of help. But why play rough, soldier-style? After all, this has nothing to do with security issues at the border,” Kyzym believes.

At the same time, he stressed, the presence of Russian troops on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border is “indeed a threat to security, primarily to Ukraine, which has been repelling Russian military aggression in Donbas for several years now.”

“Well, we will hear about the ‘fantasies’ of Belarusian reporters in the TV news tonight. But why are they doing it?” wondered the Ukrainian Ambassador.

On February 3, Belarusian MFA summoned Ukrainian Ambassador Ihor Kyzym to express its “strong protest over the targeted launch of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from Ukraine into the territory of Belarus.”

The Defense Ministry later reported that the drone was launched at 10.58am on January 24 near the village of Pischa, Kovel District, Volyn Region, 1.7km from the border with Belarus. After gaining operational altitude, the UAV crossed the border near the village of Chmielišča, Malaryta district (Brest region).

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko described the information about the “incident” spread on 3 February as “another provocation by the authorities in Belarus” and urged the Belarusian side “not to play along with Russia’s destabilizing actions.”