Brian Whitmore is a contributor writing for Independence Avenue Media. The views expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of Independence Avenue Media.
Ukraine is done playing nice with Belarus.
And it’s about time. Belarus has been a de facto combatant in Russia’s war against Ukraine from the very start. But until recently, Kyiv chose to pretend otherwise.
Ukraine’s early-war strategy was to avoid antagonizing Minsk. This meant shunning the exiled Belarusian opposition and avoiding confrontation with the authoritarian regime of Alexander Lukashenko. The hope was that the policy, which was associated with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s disgraced former chief of staff Andriy Yermak, would gently nudge Belarus toward neutrality.
That clearly didn’t work.
Lukashenko has allowed Russia to deploy tactical nuclear-capable systems in Belarus and the two countries have staged multiple joint military exercises, deepening the integration of their armed forces. From May 19-21, Belarus and Russia held large-scale nuclear exercises involving more than 64,000 troops, 200 missile launchers, 140 aircraft, 73 surface warships and 13 submarines — including eight ballistic missile subs. Then came reports that Russia was pressuring Belarus to open a new front against Ukraine.
It was in this environment that Kyiv decided it was time to call Belarus out.
On May 26, the commander of Kyiv’s drone forces publicly warned Minsk that Ukraine has compiled a list of 500 targets inside Belarus — including oil refineries supplying the Russian military — that would be struck if Belarus either joined the war or allowed Russia to open a new front on its territory. “The first 500 targets have already been identified. Free and very practical advice: do not stick in Ukraine’s craw,” Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, whose military call sign is “Madyar,” wrote on Facebook.
Brovdi’s stark warning came on the same day that Zelenskyy hosted Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the exiled Belarusian opposition leader, on her first official visit to Kyiv, in which the two discussed joint strategies to counter the Putin and Lukashenko regimes.
On June 19, Zelenskyy raised the stakes when he issued an ultimatum to Lukashenko: dismantle signal relay stations in Belarus that Russia uses to steer its drones at targets in Ukraine, or Kyiv would destroy the stations itself.
“What’s the point of saying he 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,” Zelenskyy said. “If he doesn’t do it, we’ll do it.”
The message to Lukashenko is now clear and the burden of proof is on Minsk: Either take steps to demonstrate that you aren’t a de facto combatant in Russia’s war against Ukraine or risk being treated like one.
In a performance of gaslighting of epic proportions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the Ukrainian president’s ultimatum as “absolutely aggressive” and “interference in the internal affairs of another country, an encroachment on the sovereignty of another country.”
But here’s the thing. The threat may have worked. Zelenskyy announced on June 24 that the relay stations and communications equipment in Belarus that had been guiding Russian drones had ceased working.
“Whether it has been dismantled or not, I honestly don’t know yet,” Zelenskyy said. “The fact is that, as of today, the equipment is no longer operating.”
Andriy Demchenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Border Service, reported a decrease in Russian attack drones in the country’s northern Chernihiv Oblast, which borders both Belarus and Russia. He added that large Shahed drone attacks along the Belarus-Ukraine border have also ceased.
Ukraine’s new aggressive posture toward Belarus is a clear effort to strip Moscow and Minsk of any semblance of tactical deniability. Zelenskyy is effectively telling Lukashenko that he can no longer pretend to be a passive bystander. It forces the Belarusian regime to either actively police its own territory against Russian assets or accept direct responsibility for enabling Moscow’s aggression.
It is also something of a flex. With everyone aware of the damage Ukraine’s deep-strikes capacity has wrought on Russia, Kyiv is signaling that it can also paralyze Belarus’s economy with long-range drones.
And it is a psy-op. Ukraine is testing the limits of the Russia-Belarus alliance and leveraging Lukashenko’s survival instincts.
Ukraine also has longer-term strategic goals in mind.
“Ukraine has shifted to a more openly confrontational political posture toward Belarus since late 2025. The change reflects several overlapping dynamics: concerns over emerging U.S. engagement with Minsk, Belarus’s continued military integration with Russia, and Kyiv’s own increasingly assertive regional strategy,” political analyst Balazs Jarabik, a former Slovak diplomat, wrote for Carnegie Politika.
According to Jarabik, Ukraine is concerned that recent engagement between the United States and the Lukashenko regime could evolve into a full normalization of relations with both Minsk and Moscow — something Kyiv is keen to prevent.
MORE: Why Washington Is Engaging Lukashenko After Years of Isolation
But primarily, the policy shift reflects an increasingly confident Ukraine staking its claim to status as a European power that must be reckoned with — both now and in the postwar order.
“Ukraine’s evolving policy toward Belarus also reflects Kyiv’s changing self-perception: from a state primarily seeking Western protection to an emerging regional security actor,” Jarabik wrote.
“Ukraine seeks to position itself as a pillar of Europe’s eastern security architecture in order to ensure that any future order structurally limits Russia’s ability to return as a dominant political and security actor in the region,” he added.
With Putin and Lukashenko scheduled to meet in the coming days, this geopolitical chess match is still evolving. But Ukraine seems to have won the opening gambit.
