military maneuvers in preparation at the gates of Ukraine

Behind thick forest lies Belarus, a common border with Ukraine, 891 kilometers long. In recent weeks, Russian troops have deployed en masse to this friendly country of Russia, for joint military exercises which have just started on Thursday, February 10. This is the largest deployment in Belarus since the end of the Cold War. And for Ukraine, this is an existential threat on its doorstep.

At the Novi Yarilovychi border post, truck drivers are not very talkative. Even if they see nothing of the military maneuvers in Belarus, the Ukrainian border guards know very well what is going on there, informed in particular by the truck drivers. But do the Ukrainians have the means to face a Russian offensive? The Ukrainian army is already massively mobilized on another front, in the east of the country. Nobody, in a village close to the border, wants to envisage the worst scenario: that of an imminent arrival of Russian troops.