The Belarusian government said Thursday that its air defense systems have intercepted a missile fired from Ukraine and said that several pieces of the projectile have hit the area around the town of Gobarja, with no casualties reported so far.
The Belarusian Defense Ministry has specified that preliminary analysis suggests that the projectile was part of a missile fired by the Ukrainian S-300 air defense systems and said it will soon give more details about what happened, BelTA Belarusian news agency reported.
Shortly before, Belarusian official sources had indicated that an S-300 missile allegedly coming from Ukraine had hit Belarusian territory on Thursday, while assuring that the president, Alexander Lukashasenko, had been immediately informed of what had happened.
Lukashenko has ordered the Defense Ministry and the Investigative Committee to examine the incident, which occurred between 10:00 and 11:00 (local time), according to the BelTA news agency.
The authorities are examining whether it was an incident similar to the one that occurred in November on the Polish border, where a Ukrainian missile allegedly trying to intercept Russian projectiles hit, or whether it was instead a projectile intercepted by Belarusian air defense systems.
Lukashenko is a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the military offensive launched in Ukraine, although Belarus maintains that it does not want to become directly involved. Russian and Belarusian forces have, however, conducted joint maneuvers.
The Belarusian president has warned on several occasions of potential threats from neighboring countries, while the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, went so far as to propose the deployment of international observers to verify that there is no risk to the Belarusian side.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
