The incident caused no casualties, the defense ministry in Minsk has claimed
© Telegram/@belarusian_silovik
A Ukrainian S-300 air defense missile landed on Belarusian territory on Thursday. The incident caused no casualties.
The Belarusian Defense Ministry announced that the missile landed near the city of Ivanovo in the country’s southwestern Brest Region, which shares a border with Ukraine.
Investigators believe the Ukrainian missile may have veered off course and fallen on Belarusian soil, or could have been destroyed mid-air by Belarusian air defense forces.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has been briefed about the incident.
Photos posted on social media show missile parts lying in the middle of a field.
The incident comes as officials in Minsk accuse Kiev of amassing troops and setting up firing positions across the border. The Belarusian government restricted movement in several border areas last week, citing tensions with Ukraine.
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On November 15, a falling missile killed two people in eastern Poland, not far from the border with Ukraine. Warsaw said that the projectile was probably an S-300 fired by Ukrainian forces as they were trying to fend off a Russian attack, and that there was no evidence that the fallen missile was launched by Russian troops.
Kiev initially accused Moscow of attacking Polish territory, but later said that further investigation was needed to determine what happened. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky described the incident at the time as an attack on NATO. Russia denied that the missile that hit Poland was fired by its forces.
