Expert: Belarus downing Russian drone serves its own interests, not gesture to Ukraine

This opinion was expressed in a comment to Ukrinform by Yaroslav Chornogor, director of the Russian and Belarusian Studies Program at the Ukrainian Prism Foreign Policy Council and candidate of historical sciences.

“Firstly, this is not the first case of shooting down… It is good that they [Belarusians] shot down a Russian UAV, but I would not attach great positive significance to this fact for us, because we do not know exactly over which territory it happened. Perhaps there was some kind of Belarusian strategic facility or something else that gave Belarusian pilots reason to use weapons. But I don’t think any Ukrainian interests were taken into account there — it was exclusively Belarus’s need,” the expert said.

He added that Russian drones have been flying into Belarusian territory for several months now, and the count is “in the tens, if not hundreds of UAVs.”

Chornogor expressed doubt about the possibility of any “showdown” between the Russians and Belarusians over this incident. In his opinion, Belarus will most likely keep quiet about this incident.

“They have a union state [with Russia], the Belarusian military goes to Russian training grounds to learn from their experience… Preparations are now underway for the joint Zahid 2025 exercises. We should not reassure ourselves and deceive ourselves – this incident [the shooting down of a Russian UAV by Belarusians] does not change anything significantly,” Chornogor noted.

As reported by Ukrinform with reference to an informed source in the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, on July 12, a Mi-24 helicopter of the Air Defense Forces of the Republic of Belarus attacked and destroyed a Russian Gerbera-type strike UAV flying towards Ukraine. At that moment, there were at least three Russian drones in Belarusian airspace. The wreckage of the downed UAV fell on the territory of the Gomel region.