Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that a dozen Ukrainian drones were shot down over his country overnight.
At a press conference in the capital Minsk, Lukashenko said the drones had detected and destroyed air defense systems in southern Belarus.
“We suspect that these were attack drones. Violating the airspace of Belarus, they were flying from Ukraine,” he said.
He added that the air defense forces of Belarus have been put on combat alert, as well as that Ukraine repeatedly violates the airspace of Belarus.
“The air defense forces were put on full alert to intercept the targets. There were ten of them. Airplanes and a helicopter took off, and the means of the multi-barrel missile system were also put on high alert,” he said.
According to the Belarusian president, radars detected more drones that were moving towards the Russian city of Smolensk, but then changed direction and flew towards the city of Yaroslavl.
Lukashenko said the Belarusian military had warned Russian counterparts of the threat and that all the drones had been successfully shot down by Russian air defense systems, AA writes.