Palisa: Russian troops were instructed to plan an offensive on Kyiv and Chernihiv

Intelligence confirmed that the military leadership of the Russian Armed Forces received an assignment from the countryʼs political leadership to plan several options for conducting an operation in the direction of Kyiv and Chernihiv.

This was reported to journalists by the Deputy Head of the Presidentʼs Office Pavlo Palisa, Suspilne reports.

"I ask you to note — plan and prepare. That is, several options were indeed considered there. Accordingly, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has developed possible options for response, defense, protection and counteraction to these measures," Palisa said.

He added that currently Ukraine is not recording the formation of Russian offensive groups in these areas, so there is no immediate threat of an offensive at the moment.

"The priority task for us is to prevent the creation of conditions for the Russians to be able to launch any offensive actions at all," he added.

Threat from Belarus

On May 15, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reported that the Russians are continuing their attempts to drag Belarus into a war against Ukraine and are planning missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian "decision-making centers".

On May 18, Belarus began joint nuclear weapons exercises with Russia. It later emerged that Russia had moved nuclear munitions to Belarus as part of the exercises. Due to this, SBU announced increased inspections in northern Ukraine.

In late June, the then Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrsky stated that Russia might try to launch an offensive against the Chernihiv region. According to him, the attack would most likely come from the Bryansk region of the Russian Federation, but the Russian General Staff was also considering an offensive through the territory of Belarus.

Already in early August, it became known that Belarus had begun forming a new airborne assault brigade, which would be based near Gomel — approximately 40 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.

Recall that at the beginning of Russiaʼs full-scale invasion in 2022, Russian troops entered the territory of Ukraine, including from the territory of Belarus. They also fired missiles from its territory at Ukrainian cities and villages.

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