Kyiv, Ukraine – It was, perhaps, Ukraine’s quietest victory over Russia’s oldest and closest ally.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged neighbouring Belarus to shut down four Moscow-installed relay stations that help guide Russian drone attacks on Ukraine.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listThe border between Ukraine and Belarus stretches for 1,084km (674 miles), mostly across swamps and Europe’s largest and densest forests.The stations – originally cellular communication towers – relay signals for Russian drone operators and allow their unmanned aircraft to exchange information with each other and fly deep into western Ukraine, which has few drone interceptors and NATO-supplied air defence systems.The relayers did “make the signal stronger” and the Russian attacks “more precise”, Andriy Pronin, one of the pioneers of drone warfare in Ukraine, told Al Jazeera.Zelenskyy said on June 19 that Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko allowed Russia to run “equipment that corrects fire on Ukrainian civilians, specifically civilians”.And then he issued an ultimatum that reflects Kyiv’s newfound assertiveness.“I think one week will be enough” for Lukashenko to remove the relayers, Zelenskyy said. “If he doesn’t do that, we will.”‘A barking dog doesn’t bite’With its heavy bomber drones and missiles, Kyiv is capable of striking Belarus, a country about a third of the size of Ukraine whose air defence systems are too obsolete to effectively repel drone attacks.The commander of Ukraine’s drone forces was far less diplomatic than Zelenskyy. Advertisement “A barking dog doesn’t bite,” Robe …
