What the recent events show

I said earlier that before the Crimean bridge is struck, a thorough risk assessment for Ukraine should be performed. You cannot but recall this now, given the doubts if the Crimean bridge explosion was organised by Ukrainian special services. This explosion could have been a provocation of the Russian special services. This provocation could pursue several home policy goals, including legitimisation of another unprecedented escalation that we observe today.

As for the assessment of what happened on Saturday morning on the Crimean Bridge, there are grounds for serious doubts: could the explosion of a truck have caused the collapse of two spans at the time when an echelon with tank cars full of petroleum products was passing by? I read expert assessments of explosive technicians and civil security specialists for such structures. As a result of this analysis, I have a reasonable doubt that it could have been just a car bomb.

Secondly, returning to the beginning of my reasoning: was it a miscalculation on the part of the top political leadership to take this step at the very moment when the West is trying its best to stop another round of escalation? The conclusion is clear: the incident with the Crimean bridge will accelerate escalation.

Those two factors gave me reason to doubt that this was done by the Ukrainian special services. And one more thing: for a whole day, the pro-Kremlin media community and officials tried to traditionally present it as an accident. And then suddenly Putin comes forward and expressly (in a brief statement) blames the Ukrainian special services. There were explosions in Novofedorivka, attacks on the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol, and sinking of the cruiser Moskva earlier, but the Kremlin in all ways tried to refute the versions that Ukraine could have done it. And suddenly, here you are. It sounded like the announcement of today's massive missile attack. 

In the context of these events, it is absolutely appropriate to look at Belarus

If someone has doubts that the Russians can blow up their own bridge: the same people blew up the Nord Streams a few weeks ago, they blew up the houses on the Kashirskoe Highway in 1999 (as a pretext for the second military campaign against Chechnya, which brought Putin to power in Russia), the so-called "Ryazan sugar". Such stories are still in my memory.

In the context of these events, it is absolutely appropriate to look at Belarus. Today's statement about the "deployment of a regional grouping of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus", in my opinion, is another announcement that Lukashenka has finally come to the opinion that Belarus can send its armed forces. If there are provocations on the territory of Belarus in the coming hours and days, it will be a signal that an invasion from Belarus will begin with active participation of Belarusian military personnel.

Why do I say provocations? Because we have already learned to distinguish between provocations and real acts of war. But if a political decision is made to launch strikes on the military infrastructure on the territory of Belarus, it may serve as a deterrent rather than a provoking factor.

What can prevent Lukashenka from openly entering the war? First of all, his internal instincts. No matter how many signals he has (so many of them have already come from various capitals of the European Union), I think he ignores them. But he will not be able to miss the signal that "Chairman Xi" sends him through his channels — to go to war or not to go to war, because Belarus is quite dependent on China economically. Therefore, the opinion of the Chinese leader would be convincing for Lukashenka.

Source: 

https://razumkov.org.ua/komentari/krymskyi-mist-i-mozhlyvist-nastupu-z-bilorusi-shcho-vidbuvaietsia