Ukraine began preparing for the invasion of the Russian Federation in November 2021, but did not expect the attack to be carried out from the territory of Belarus.
This was announced on "Svoboda Live" broadcast by Oleksiy Danilov, the National Security and Defense Council secretary.
"We could not tell society that there would be a war. It was unacceptable because it was one of the tactics of the Russian Federation to start chaos here," he explained.
The Secretary of the NSDC added that the authorities clearly understood that the invasion of Russian troops would take place, but were not ready for it to take place by Belarus.
"We did not expect such stabbing in the back. We did not expect that they would go on all fronts. It was a surprise," Danilov admitted.
He also clarified that the Ukrainian authorities were preparing for aggravation in Kharkiv, Sumy, Luhansk, and Crimea areas.
As was reported earlier, at 5 a.m., on February 24, Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation, declared the beginning of "special operation in Donbas," after which the Russian army started bombing the Ukrainian cities and villages across the country. Alexander Lukashenko, who considers himself as the President of Belarus, stated that the Belarusian military "did not take and does not intend to take part in the "special operation of the Russian Federation."
However, on March 3, the US military, relying on their information, said that among of the 480 missiles launched in Ukraine at the time, 70 were fired from Belarus.
The European Union considers the Lukashenko regime in Belarus as Russia's accomplice in the war against Ukraine.
In early February, Lukashenko said that Minsk would take joint military action with Moscow "if Kyiv decides to attack Donbas." He also noted that "the war with Ukraine will last a maximum of 3-4 days."
Earlier, Lukashenko called on the West not to mess with the Union State and said that "if Belarus and Russia hit hard, there'll be hell to pay."
In 2018, Lukashenko said that "the Ukrainian-Belarusian border will never be the border of war," and later joked: "If we come to you from the north, I want some military to hear it in Ukraine, we will arrive on combine harvesters, tractors, trolleybuses, and buses."