Belarus’s exiled opposition leader visited Kyiv on Monday as the Ukrainian capital cleaned up after Russia’s biggest missile attack of the year and world leaders kept a close eye on how much support the Belarusian government is ready to provide for Moscow's all-out invasion of Ukraine.
Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya arrived by train in Kyiv for her first visit to the city, a day after French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by phone with President Alexander Lukashenko, who has governed Belarus with an iron fist for more than three decades.
The French leader “underscored the risks for Belarus of allowing itself to be dragged into Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine,” according to a presidential aide in Macron’s office who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with the presidential palace's practices.
Macron also spoke Sunday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who in recent days has increasingly warned that Belarus could provide a launch pad for Russia to open a new front in northern Ukraine.
With the full-scale invasion more than four years old, the Russian army is locked in a hard and costly slog on the 1,250-kilometre (780-mile) front line that mostly snakes through eastern and southern Ukraine. With American-made air defence missiles in short supply because of the Iran war, Russian missiles are harder for Ukraine to stop.
US efforts to stop the fighting have made little progress and have now stalled.
Russia fires hypersonic missile at Ukraine
Sunday’s heavy bombardment included Russia’s powerful hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missile, which can carry multiple warheads. Russian President Vladimir Putin has boasted that it can plunge to a target at speeds up to Mach 10.
Zelenskyy said Ukrainian intelligence services had received tip-offs from the United States and European countries that Russia was preparing to launch an Oreshnik. At least 87 people were wounded in Kyiv, including three children, in the barrage, Zelenskyy said Monday. Twenty-one people were hospitalised.
The intense assault damaged buildings across the city, including near government offices, residential buildings, schools and a market, Ukrainian authorities said. Shattered glass still littered sidewalks on Monday.
‘France trying to stop Belarus from being dragged into war’
Macron’s call with Lukashenko was their first since 2022, shortly after Russia launched the all-out invasion on February 24, 2022, when the Belarus government allowed Moscow to use the country's territory as a platform to send troops into neighbouring Ukraine.
A terse readout released by the Belarusian presidential press service said that the call took place “on the French side's initiative” and that the two leaders discussed “regional issues” and the relations of Belarus with the European Union and France.
Tsikhanouskaya, the Belarusian opposition leader in exile, said on Sunday that France is trying to prevent Belarus from being dragged into the Russia-Ukraine war. “The main goal is to warn Lukashenko that dragging Belarus into the war would be unacceptable,” Tsikhanouskaya said.
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