Gernot Kramper (star) But of course an attack from the north would in turn tie up enormous forces in Ukraine. The most vulnerable side of Ukraine would be the land corridor to Poland.
Hendrik Holdmann (star) Belarusian dictator Lukashenko recently announced that he intends to set up joint troops with Putin. What does this official entry into the war mean for the Ukraine war? Is there a new front in the north or what can we expect?
Gernot Kramper (star) There is no longer an official war, because neither Russia nor any power in the world that wages wars is now inclined to declare a state of war. That has somehow gone out of fashion since the Second World War. And the Russians are no big exception here, and neither is Lukashenko. The question is: what does it do? Of course, the combat effectiveness of the Belarusian troops is estimated to be low, even lower than that of the Russians. But it does show two different things: on the one hand, that the Russians are able to somehow mobilize more men and material in order to set up a joint corps or whatever that will be in Belarus. And it is another threat to Ukraine, because you would have to protect yourself against it in some way, and that was at the beginning of the war, it was always discussed when the Russians were still believed to be capable of such deep, large-scale operations, what one no longer trusts. But of course an attack from the north would in turn tie up enormous forces in Ukraine. And one has to say, right at the beginning of the war: Ukraine’s most vulnerable side would be the land corridor to Poland. In retrospect, one has to say that perhaps Putin should not have attacked Kharkov and Kyiv, but should have aimed at Lviv and thus largely separated Ukraine from support from the West. Well, they didn’t do that back then, because they believed that Kyiv could be conquered in a few days. But of course it’s a threat. And even if that doesn’t happen at all, Kyiv will have to react to it in some way.