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What did Minsk and Washington signal before 4 July 2022?
Summary
Two reports from the days before 4 July 2022 pointed to a shifting security picture on Ukraine's western and northern borders.
What was shaping the security debate around Ukraine's neighbours on 4 July 2022? Two developments from the preceding days offered part of the answer.
On 2 July, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed that his country had intercepted Ukrainian missiles directed at Belarus three days earlier. He also said that Belarus does not want war with Ukraine. The claim was his own, and it placed Minsk's account of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine on the public agenda.
A few days earlier, on 29 June, U.S. President Joe Biden used the NATO summit in Madrid to announce a new permanent U.S. military base in Poland, the headquarters of the 5th Army. The command had kept a forward command post in Poznań since the previous year. Poland's government had long requested such a base.
Two signals, one region
Taken together, the two reports show different approaches on either side of Ukraine's western and northern frontiers. Belarus offered claims about missiles and a declaration against war. NATO's summit produced a lasting American presence in Poland, answering a request Warsaw had made for years.
