Ukraine’s acting president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, today threatened violence against his neighbor, Belarus, if its President Oleksandr Lukashenko did not remove signal relay systems mounted on communication towers in two regions of southern Belarus. (Some reports indicate that they are air defense radar.) He gave him a week’s time. He said that they were being used by Russia to help steer attacks against Ukraine.
Zelenskyy delivered his threat at a news conference in Kiev, saying: “What’s the point of saying he (Lukashenko) doesn’t want to be in the war? Let him remove this equipment, let him switch it off. I think a week will be enough for him to do that. If he doesn’t do it, we’ll do it.” He did not explain further.
This follows several weeks where he has tried to pick a fight with Lukashenko, while the latter has tried to defuse the confrontations. Even in the face of Wednesday’s drone attack on a bus full of Belarus’s schoolchildren, with Lukashneko having proof that it was a Ukrainian drone, he has refused to jump to conclusions, insisting that a competent investigation be carried out.
Zelenskyy acts like a man at the end of his fuse, and he threatens to put Europe, and perhaps more, at the end of their fuse.