Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has issued his strongest warning yet to Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, accusing Minsk of directly facilitating Russian drone attacks on Ukraine and giving Belarusian authorities one week to remove communications equipment helping guide strikes or face a Ukrainian strike to destroy the gear.

Speaking alongside Honduran President Nasry Asfura in Kyiv on June 19, Zelenskiy said Belarus remained deeply involved in Russia's military campaign despite repeated assertions by Lukashenko that he does not want his country drawn into the war.

"When Lukashenko says he does not want to be involved in the war, he should be honest, at least with his own people," Zelenskiy said. "It is not only he who could be drawn into the war — his entire country could be dragged into it by Russia."

A week of whiplash diplomacy

The ultimatum capped an extraordinary three-day reversal in the tone between the two leaders. On June 16, Lukashenko had apologised to Zelenskiy for previous harsh remarks in an interview with Al Arabiya, saying: "If Volodymyr was offended, I apologize to him for these words."

Lukashenko said his earlier comments had been a response to what he characterised as threats from Kyiv, including statements that Ukraine had identified hundreds of potential targets inside Belarus and knew his own personal whereabouts. Zelenskiy's response to the apology was conspicuously magnanimous in tone. "He's apologised — and thank God for that, let's put it that way," Zelenskiy said. "Nobody takes offence simply at words, personal remarks. If my country is insulted, we'll take offence and we won't forget it. But if it's just personal matters..."

The Belarusian strongman is prone to flip flopping in his foreign relations as he attempts to play big powers off against each other. More recently, Lukashenko has been flirting with the Trump administration in an effort to decrease his dependency Russian President Vladimir Putin following the imposition of sanctions on Minsk for allowing Russia to launch its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 from Belarusian soil. The flirtation has worked to an extent: Lukashenko has released hundreds of political prisoners in exchange for sanctions relief on the national airline Belavia and cash-cows potash producers Belarusian Potash Company and Belaruskali.

But last week’s détente collapsed within days. On June 17, Russian and Belarusian media reported that a Ukrainian drone had struck a civilian bus in Russia's Bryansk region, carrying a children's football team from Gomel to a training camp in Gelendzhik. The attack killed the wife of the team's coach and injured six children. Belarus's Foreign Ministry demanded "complete explanations" from Kyiv. Ukraine denied responsibility, with Zelenskiy arguing the attack was a Russian provocation designed to drag Belarusians into the war: "Everyone has already acknowledged — both international experts and, I believe, the Russians too, albeit not openly — that this attack was not ours. The Russians will carry out many different provocations in order to drag the people of Belarus into this war."

It was against this backdrop — apology, atrocity, denial — that Zelenskiy escalated to an explicit ultimatum just two days later.

The relay stations

The dispute centres on relay systems Kyiv says are installed on communications towers in two Belarusian regions bordering Ukraine. According to Ukrainian intelligence, the equipment helps coordinate Russian drone strikes on civilian infrastructure and population centres rather than military positions near the front line.

"There are repeaters on his towers — Russian repeaters, Belarusian ones. What difference does it make to us?" Zelenskiy said. "On his territory, along two regions bordering Ukraine, there is equipment directing fire at the Ukrainian population. Can he take that down? What's the point of saying he doesn't want to be at war? Let them switch off that equipment. I think a week will be enough for him to do this. If he doesn't, we will."

Military analyst Alexander Kovalenko, an observer with the Information Resistance group, explained the technical function of the equipment to Belarusian outlet Euroradio: the repeaters stabilise the communications link between Russian drone operators and their aircraft as the drones approach Belarusian territory from the north, allowing pilots to retain control over targeting all the way to impact rather than losing the signal to Ukrainian electronic warfare.

"These facilities are not located deep within Belarus. To ensure stable communications, they must be located in the border zone," Kovalenko said, adding that Ukrainian forces likely already have the coordinates and could neutralise them without a large-scale operation — or that Belarus could simply reconfigure or relocate the systems out of effective range rather than removing them entirely.

The 500 targets — and Lukashenko's counter-threat

The ultimatum builds on a warning issued last month by Robert Brovdi, callsign "Madiar," commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, who said Kyiv had identified approximately 500 military and logistical targets across Belarus — and strongly hinted that Lukashenko himself was among them. Lukashenko's response was characteristically blunt: "They may well have identified 500 targets. But we have one very serious target, with precise coordinates. And it is not far from Belarus" — a thinly veiled reference to Kyiv, located just 90 kilometres from the Belarusian border.

Belarusian Defence Minister Viktor Khrenin pushed back on the broader premise that Minsk has any interest in escalation, arguing it makes "no sense" for a country of nine million people bordering three Nato member states to voluntarily join the conflict unless attacked first.

Zelenskiy also renewed his accusation that Belarus indirectly supports Russia's war effort through petroleum exports. "Today, Belarus is one of the main suppliers to the Russian army," he said. "Can this be stopped? I am convinced it is within his power."

Despite Western sanctions, as IntelliNews reported Belarus has been supplying Russia with fuel from its two modern refineries after Ukrainian drone strikes have disable some 15% of Russia’s refining capacity. Zelenskiy has no explicitly threatened to hit the two refineries, but with its new long-range drones they are both easily in range.

The ultimatum landed as Russian strikes intensified across Ukraine. Attacks earlier in the week killed at least 11 people and set fire to Kyiv's 11th-century Dormition Cathedral, a listed UNESCO site that is thousands of years old, which Zelenskiy described as "one of Russia's most serious crimes against Christian culture to date." On June 20, Russian guided bombs struck Kharkiv, killing at least one person and injuring nine others, including a child.

In the same week, a massive drone attack on Moscow set the city on fire in multiple locations during G7 summit in the early hours of June 18, largest drone attack on the Russian capital since the start of the war, according to official statements and regional authorities. Earlier this month, the flagship Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) kicked off as Ukraine struck Saint Petersburg oil terminals with long-range drones in another symbolic attack.

Zelenskiy's hardening line on Belarus is not new and he has also escalated the scale and range of the long-distance drone campaign against Russian military, energy and infrastructure targets in the last months. In May, he said Kyiv was prepared to take "preventive" measures against Moscow and the Belarusian leadership over potential military threats to northern Ukraine, amid a joint Russia-Belarus nuclear exercise that had also unsettled Nato's eastern European members following drone incursions into the Baltic states.

What comes next

Belarus has become increasingly integrated into Russia's military infrastructure since 2022. The two countries operate a joint regional military grouping, conduct regular exercises, and have expanded defence cooperation under the Union State framework. Russia has deployed tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus and established a more permanent military presence there. For much of the war, Lukashenko has tried to balance dependence on the Kremlin with avoiding direct military involvement, insisting Belarusian troops will not enter combat in Ukraine unless Belarus itself is attacked.

Zelenskiy's ultimatum suggests Kyiv increasingly views that distinction as meaningless. The question Ukrainian officials are now asking is no longer whether Belarusian soldiers cross the border, but whether Belarusian territory continues to function as a platform from which Russia can wage war against Ukraine — and whether Lukashenko's apology, his counter-threat, and his government's denials can all be true at once.