"Presidents of Belarus and Russia Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin agreed to deploy a joint regional group of troops. The Belarusian leader announced it at a meeting on security issues," the state-run Belta news agency reported. 

Alexander Lukashenko stated that following the informal CIS summit, he had a one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg."Given the worsening of the situation on the western borders of the Union State, we agreed to deploy a regional group of forces of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. This complies with our documents. It says that if the threat level reaches the level as it is now, we begin to use the Union State group of forces.The basis (I have always said this) of this group is the army, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus. I must inform you that the formation of this group has begun. It's been going on for, I think, two days," Lukashenko said. Does Belarus enter the war?

Political scientist Dmitry Galkin has talked about this and other questions to Vzglyad.az. 

In his opinion, Russian President would like to end the conflict as soon as possible. 

"He certainly needs to achieve a clear victory. It is necessary both for foreign policy reasons and domestic political reasons. The Russian government simply cannot afford to lose the conflict since in this case the country is threatened by an almost inevitable social destabilization. Therefore, Vladimir Putin, after the official annexation of the occupied Ukrainian territory, launched a campaign to intimidate Ukrainian citizens, the only purpose of which is to force the Ukrainian authorities to agree peace on Russian terms. Using the destruction of the Crimean bridge as a pretext, Russian troops will strike at the residential areas of large cities and destroy infrastructure facilities, which are necessary for the urban population to survive the winter. 

The deployment of a joint Russian-Belarusian group on the border with Ukraine can also be seen as part of this campaign of intimidation. The Russian leadership shows that if its demands are not met, better organized and prepared attacks can be launched against Kyiv.

Perhaps, the Belarusian army will have to take part in the operation, which is likely to begin next spring if the war is not over by then. However, most likely, Alexander Lukashenko will again try to avoid the participation of Belarusian troops in hostilities on Ukrainian territory. But in any case, the deployment of this group indicates that the Russian government may try to seize Kyiv again in order to force the Ukrainian leadership to fulfill its demands,” Galkin noted. 

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