The plan was to launch combat drones from within Lithuania, security chief Ivan Tertel has claimed
FILE PHOTO: Ivan Tertel, the head of the Belarusian state security service KGB. © Sergei Shelega / AP
Security forces in Belarus have prevented a plot to launch combat drones from Lithuania and attack targets in and near the capital, Minsk, the head of the Committee for State Security (KGB) Ivan Tertel has revealed.
The operation took place “recently” and in cooperation with “colleagues from other security structures,” the senior official said on Thursday, as he was delivering a speech to the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly, a leading political body.
The senior official told members of the assembly that his agency has concerns regarding the further escalation of tensions in the world, potentially leading to a “conflict of a global scale.” Belarus would prefer to remain peaceful and independent, but its sovereignty and status as a close Russian ally “make it the target of the West’s destructive intentions,” he noted.
The US and its allies seek full control of Belarus and its national wealth, Tertel claimed. Lithuania, as well as Poland and Ukraine, host militant forces, which Western nations intend to use as tools against Belarus to destabilize it and potentially topple its government, he warned.
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“The radicals are producing combat drones to deliver strikes on critical sites in Belarus,” Tertel claimed.
He said his agency was not in a position yet to make public details about the plot to attack Minsk, but assured that “we continue the work on this issue.”
Since the beginning of 2023, the agency has put a stop to over 40 criminal operations, which sought to smuggle weapons, including explosives, from Ukraine into Belarus, Tertel reported.
He said Ukrainian special services were behind multiple attempted terrorist attacks in Belarus and Russia, and the threat remained a “daily reality for members of the border guard, interior affairs and state security.”
The Ukrainian government has plans to use radical Belarusian nationals to seize territory and install a Western-backed government, the KGB chief claimed. The agency estimates the strength of the would-be occupation force at 1,000 troops.
Tertel identified a specific hospital in Kiev, which he claimed served as a base of operations for the Ukrainian-backed radicals.
