Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has issued a one-week ultimatum to Belarus to shut down relay equipment on the border with Ukraine that he claimed was being used to guide Russian drone attacks.
During a media briefing in Kyiv on Friday, Zelenskyy threatened Ukraine will shut the radars down if Belarusian leader Aliaksandr Lukashenka doesn’t do anything to address it.
“There are relay stations on the towers. Can he take them down? What’s the point of saying he doesn’t want war? Just take down that equipment; just shut it down,” said the Ukrainian president during the joint media briefing with the visiting president of Honduras, Nasry Asfura.
“I think a week would be enough for him to do this. And the reason I say a week is because right now, every day, our civilians are dying and children are being wounded because of this. If he doesn’t do it, we will,” he warned.
In 2022, Moscow used Belarus as a launchpad for its attack on Ukraine and has been trying to drag Minsk further into its war since. As Putin’s closest ally, Lukashenka has been hosting Russia’s nuclear weapons and military infrastructure.
Minsk also produced components for Moscow’s military industries, and the countries have held joint drills of nuclear forces involving Russian weapons deployed in Belarus.
Earlier in May Zelenskyy said that Kyiv was prepared to take “preventive” measures against Moscow and the Belarusian leadership over potential military threats to northern Ukraine, amid a Russia-Belarus nuclear exercise and the consequent tensions with European NATO members, sparked by drone incursions in the Baltic.
At least one killed by Russian strikes in Kharkiv
Zelenskyy’s warning comes as civilian casualties in the war mount following renewed Russian attacks on multiple cities in Ukraine that left at least 11 people dead earlier this week and that set the 11th-century Dormition Cathedral, a major religious landmark in Kyiv, on fire.
On Saturday, Ukrainian authorities reported at least one person was killed and nine others, including a child, were injured after Russian guided bombs slammed into Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
Video footage from Kharkiv Regional State Emergency Service of Ukraine showed evacuations of injured people and a body being pulled from the rubble hours after the attack.
The Russian KAB bombs slammed into a low-rise apartment block in the city’s Kholodnohirskiy district in the early hours of Saturday, local officials said.
Meanwhile, Zelenskyy on Friday also said that he hoped that the US would give a “positive response” regarding granting Ukraine licences for it to manufacture anti-ballistic air defence.
His remarks came after meeting with US President Donald Trump at the Group of Seven (G7) summit in France earlier this week.
According to Zelenskyy, having licences would help Ukraine’s state and private defence companies to build these anti-ballistic interceptor missiles, not just for use in the war, but also to help its allies in Europe and the Middle East.
“God willing, they (the US) will hold all the necessary consultations with the district authorities, other suppliers, and the administration, as well as with the military,” Zelenskyy said.
“I very much hope that they will return with a positive response and that we will be able to obtain the licences so that our capabilities, and we do have the capabilities, will allow our private-sector companies and our state-owned defence industry companies to help Ukraine, to help the countries of the Middle East, and to help the countries of Europe,” he added.
Additional sources • AP