MINSK, March 7. /TASS/. The Russian А-50 plane, which was sabotaged at an airfield near Minsk by Ukrainian and American special services, has never flown into Ukrainian airspace, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Tuesday.
"This plane has never flown into Ukrainian airspace. It didn’t even get close to the border of Poland, Lithuania, all this filth that’s working against Belarus today. It doesn’t need that. We worked very carefully. We have given no reason to do so," Lukashenko said, BelTA reported.
The Belarusian president said he believed "it was not a Russian plane on Belarusian territory."
"I asked the Russian president [Vladimir Putin] to send me an airborne group so we could have control along the perimeter of our Belarusian borders and rehearse certain skills in a joint Belarusian-Russian group," Lukashenko said.
On Tuesday, Lukashenko announced an agent of Ukrainian special services and his accomplices had been detained in Belarus for their involvement in the sabotage attack on the A-50 aircraft at the Machulishchy airfield near Minsk.
The A-50 early warning and control system aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces was involved in the exercises of units that are part of the aviation component of the Belarusian-Russian regional grouping of troops, which was held in Belarus from January 16 to February 1 in order to increase interoperability in combat training missions.
At the end of February, there were reports that the military airfield of Machulishchy had been attacked and the A-50 aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces allegedly suffered significant damage. Belarus called these reports false. Later, Belarusian television aired footage of an A-50 aircraft showing that it was in good condition while moving on the runway and while flying. It was also stated that the plane "escorted" Lukashenko's aircraft during his return from Beijing.