Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned Belarus against being drawn into Russia's war against Ukraine, as Kyiv reported construction activity near the border and simultaneously signalled a strategic shift away from seeking formal Western security guarantees.
Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram that Ukraine believes Russia is attempting once again to pull Belarus into the conflict, citing reports of road construction and the building of artillery positions in Belarusian border areas. He said he had ordered Minsk to be warned of the consequences of any involvement. No independent evidence for the construction activity was immediately provided. The warning carries particular weight given that in February 2022, Russian forces used Belarusian territory as a launching point for their initial assault on Kyiv.
Meanwhile, a broader shift in Ukraine's diplomatic posture has become apparent. Throughout much of 2025, Zelenskyy repeatedly demanded binding Western security guarantees as a precondition for any peace agreement, and a summit in Berlin in December produced the so-called Berlin Declaration, outlining a framework for peace. But during a recent European tour — taking in Germany, Italy, Norway, and the Netherlands — Zelenskyy made no mention of security guarantees. Analysts at the Clingendael Institute, a Dutch foreign policy think tank, say this reflects a fundamental change: those guarantees were never made concrete, and critically, they would only have taken effect after a ceasefire — a prospect Moscow shows no sign of accepting. Ukraine's leadership appears to have concluded that survival depends on building a strong army, a resilient economy, and a domestic defence industry rather than on external political commitments.
The most tangible outcome of Zelenskyy's European tour was Germany's pledge to finance and purchase hundreds of Patriot air defence missiles. Zelenskyy told Dutch public broadcaster NPO 1 that Patriots are his top priority: "We have everything to shoot down Shahed drones, but nothing to intercept ballistic missiles." He warned that Ukraine's Patriot launcher stocks had run empty "a few times last winter" and could run out "at any moment." Britain, for its part, pledged a record delivery of 120,000 drones, while agreements on joint long-range weapons production were reached with Germany.
The urgency behind these requests was underlined by a devastating Russian bombardment overnight, which struck nearly all major Ukrainian cities, killing close to twenty civilians. Russia's Defence Ministry responded to the European drone and weapons commitments by publishing a list of defence company addresses across the UK, Germany, Denmark, Latvia, Poland, and the Netherlands — calling them potential targets. Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who serves as deputy head of Russia's security council and is known for inflammatory rhetoric, described the list as "potential targets for the Russian armed forces." With peace negotiations effectively stalled and battlefield intensity rising, the prospect of a negotiated settlement appears more distant than at any point in recent months.