CNN:

The announcement last week by Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko that his country and Russia would form a joint regional force and carry out exercises set off alarm bells in Kyiv.

The last time Belarusian and Russian forces held joint exercises, in February, many of those Russian forces went on to cross the Ukrainian border in their ill-fated drive towards the capital.

It’s not that Belarus has a mighty army – it doesn’t. But the prospect of Ukraine’s long northern border becoming a passageway for Russian forces for the second time this year would be a nightmare for Ukraine’s already stretched forces. Ukraine and Belarus share a 1,000-kilometer frontier, much of it sparsely populated and thickly forested.

The first group of Russian soldiers to join the new force with Belarusian troops arrived in Belarus Saturday, Minsk’s defense ministry said. Altogether, the Russian contingent will be less than 9,000 people, according to the head of the Belarus Department of International Military Cooperation, Valery Revenko.

At the moment, the Ukrainian army is conducting offensives in the east and south while holding off Russian forces in parts of Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia. After seven months of war, the Ukrainian military has suffered attrition just like its enemy: moving forces to defend its northern flank would stretch forces already fighting on multiple fronts.

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