Belarus protested to Ukraine’s ambassador on Thursday after saying it had downed a Ukrainian S-300 air defence missile in a field, during one of Russia’s heaviest aerial onslaughts against Ukraine since the start of the war.
The military commissar of the Brest region, Oleg Konovalov, played the incident down in a video posted on social media by the state-run BelTA news agency, saying locals had “absolutely nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, these things happen”.
He compared the incident to one in November, when an S-300 believed to have strayed after being fired by Ukrainian air defences landed on the territory of NATO-member Poland, triggering fears of an escalation that were rapidly defused.
Nevertheless, the Ukrainian ambassador was summoned to the foreign ministry in Minsk to receive a formal protest.
“The Belarussian side views this incident as extremely serious,” spokesperson Anatoly Glaz said.