MOSCOW, August 11. /TASS/. The Ukrainian army has planted tens of thousands of land mines, more than 60 observation posts and more than 15 new strongholds in the Rovno Region on the border with Belarus, the commander of the joint forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Sergey Nayev, said after his trip to the northwestern Ukrainian region.
"Today, I had a chance to see the protection of the state border on the territory of the Rovno Region. Here the number of observation posts has been increased by more than six dozen. More than 15 new fortified positions have been dug. Tens of thousands of mines have been laid," Nayev said in a video uploaded to his Telegram channel.
The length of the Ukrainian-Belarusian border is 1,084 kilometers. A spokesman for the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service, Andrey Demchenko, has regularly said that the situation there is stable. Still, Ukrainian units set up barriers and also conduct surveillance from unmanned aerial vehicles.
In late June, Kiev said that it was closely monitoring the situation in Belarus in connection with the deployment of PMC Wagner on the territory of the republic. On June 30, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky issued orders to reinforce the country’s troops near Belarus. On July 10, Nayev reported that the authorities would further strengthen positions and engineering fortifications in the Volyn, Zhytomir and Rovno regions. On July 17, Demchenko said that Kiev had strengthened the border with Belarus to the maximum extent possible and the work along these lines was continuing. Ukraine, he said, is building engineering barriers and fortifications on the border and destroying roads.