Belarus reportedly deployed one of its Air Force fighters to prevent the entry of a Russian drone that allegedly intruded into its airspace in the Homiel (Gomel) region at around 3:30 a.m. “Aviation was used for the first time in Belarus to shoot down a Shahed drone” announced the Belarusian Project Hajun, an open-source intelligence tool that monitors the military activity of Russian and Belarusian troops in Belarus.
Since the beginning of the conflict, Shahed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as “drones kamikaze”have been used to carry out offensives against Ukrainian infrastructure. And although Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is one of Putin’s main allies, the president has avoided involving Minsk in the invasion of Ukraine (although he has used its territory to organize attacks).
Just half an hour after the drone was seen, two explosions were heard in the Yelsk district “and a bright flash was seen in the sky”the post on ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter) said. “This is probably the first recorded case of a Belarusian Air Force fighter attempting to destroy a real military target in the sky,” the Hajun Project added alongside a map of the area.
According to the spokesperson of the project, Newsweekalthough there were still no further details about the drone, it is known that “planes have been sent to control the drones flying towards Belarus for a while, so the deployment of planes It’s not something unusual for the Belarusian Air Force in recent months, […] But today was the first time we actually took it down.”
For its part, the pro-Ukrainian account of X, Saint Javelin, warned that “the Belarusian Air Force has used fighter jets to shoot down Russian drones Shahed who entered its airspace. Lukashenko will receive a phone call from Putin.”
kyiv has also threatened Minsk with increasing the presence of its army in the Gomel region over the past three weeks and promised a response if the Belarusians violate their border, although the Belarusian opposition believes this is unlikely in the short term.
