Russia has been using Belarusian infrastructure to support itsdroneoperations against Ukraine and incursions into NATO airspace, pro-Ukrainian hacker groups have revealed. According to the announcement on Friday (February 20), the hackers conducted a six-monthcyber operationusing dozens of accounts belonging to Russian military personnel to gain access to Russian drone-monitoring systems.

The groups reported thatRussianforces used civilian infrastructure inBelarus, including cellular towers, to lay out routes and provide stable signals for Russian drone strikes against targets in northern and westernUkraine, including energy and railway infrastructure. They added that the Russian strikes conducted on the night of September 9 to 10, 2025, during whichdrones crossed into NATO airspace in Polandthrough Belarus, were actually a test of Belarusian civilian and cellular infrastructure for Russian drone strikes.

The hacker groups also noted that Russian forces used incursions intoNATOairspace to plan strikes against logistics routes in both Ukraine and NATO member Poland to cut flows of Western military assistance to Ukraine, according to theInstitute for the Study of War (ISW).

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These operations are likely part ofRussia’s “Phase Zero” campaign, which it has been intensifying to destabilise Europe and undermine NATO cohesion in preparation for a possible NATO-Russiawar in the future, experts noted.

"ISW continues to assess that Russia has de facto annexed Belarus and that Belarus is a cobelligerent in Russia’s war against Ukraine," the institute added.

This comes asUkrainecontinued its long-range strike campaign against Russian defence industrial and energy assets on the night of February 20 to 21, including with Ukrainian-producedFP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, its forces conducted a missile strike against the Russian state-owned Votkinsk Machine Building Plant in Votkinsk, Udmurtia Republic - roughly 764 miles from the international border.

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that theVotkinsk Plantproduces Yars-series intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), submarine-launched Bulava ballistic missiles (SLBM), 9M723-1 type Iskander-M ballistic missiles, and 9-S-7760 Kinzhal aeroballistic missiles. Russian opposition outlet Astra and a Ukrainian open-source intelligence project reported that the plant also produces Topol-M missile systems andOreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missiles(IRBM).

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Source: Daily Express :: World Feed