Massive Ukrainian blasts cripple border bridges with Belarus: Minsk

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Chairman of the State Border Committee of Belarus Anatoly Lappo said Sunday that Ukrainian forces have destroyed nearly all bridges and mined the roads along the Belarus border.

"Today, almost all border bridges have been blown up, and automobile and railway border routes are completely mined,” Lappo said as quoted by Belarusian TV.

The official has also stressed that Ukrainian forces have fortified the border "to the point of putting anti-tank mines in three rows on the roads." 

Elsewhere in his remarks, Lappo unmasked that the troops Kiev has sent to the border are “not border guards”.

“We are under pressure, they are aiming at our border guards, sometimes they shoot in the air, constant aerial reconnaissance is being carried out,” he added.

It is worth noting that Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has earlier reported that its ambassador to Belarus was summoned and given an official note stating that "Ukraine is planning to conduct a strike on the territory of Belarus." 

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry claimed that the accusation was "completely false," and that it could be part of a Russian plan to "stage a provocation and further accuse" Kiev.

On his account, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko accused Ukraine earlier this week of massing tens of thousands of soldiers near the border. While Lukashenko initially allowed Russian troops to enter Ukraine from its territory, he stated last week that Belarus' role in the conflict is limited to self-defense and denying Ukraine the ability to "shoot Russians in the back from Belarus' territory."

This comes two days after a truck was blown up on the motorway section of the Crimean Bridge from the Taman Peninsula, causing seven fuel tanks of a train traveling to the Crimean peninsula to go up in flames.

Putin blames Ukraine secret services for Crimean bridge blast, calls it 'terrorism'

Simultaneously, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Ukrainian special services authorized and carried out the explosion on the Crimean Bridge, which was a terrorist attack aimed at destroying Russia's essential infrastructure.

Following a meeting the Russian President had with Russian investigative chief Alexander Bastrykin to examine the preliminary findings of the inquiry into the Saturday bombing on the Kerch Strait bridge, Putin stated, "as you have just reported, there is no doubt. This is a terrorist attack aimed at destroying the critical civilian infrastructure of the Russian Federation," adding that "the authors and executors, those who ordered it are the special services of Ukraine."