Arestovych on possible resignation of Chief of General Staff of Belarus: I am checking this information.

Oleksiy Arestovych, Advisor to the Head of the President's Office, has said that he was checking information about the alleged resignation of Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Belarus Viktor Gulevich.

"I'm checking this information," Arestovych said on Sunday during the telethon, which is broadcast by the Rada TV channel, answering the presenter's question.

Earlier, a number of media outlets published a scan of Gulevich's resignation letter dated March 4 addressed to Minister of Defense of Belarus Viktor Khrenin, in which he reports that the personnel of military units massively refuse to take part in hostilities and the Armed Forces of Belarus cannot complete a single battalion group. "Conducting explanatory work with the commanders of military units did not produce results. I have the courage to assume that replacing the commanders of these military units, who could not organize the formation of groups on the ground, will not give us the desired result," the statement says.

At the same time, the Ministry of Defense of Belarus refuted this information, stating that "Gulevich cannot ask the Minister of Defense of Belarus to resign, since only the one who appointed him – the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus, can resign." They also said that the staffing of formations and military units of Belarus is 100%, "and they are already performing tasks, only on their territory."

During the telethon, Arestovych said that the Russian army is conducting shelling from the territory of Belarus, including with the use of Iskander operational-tactical missiles, thus holding Belarus hostage.

"The Belarusian army is not currently used against Ukraine. We know this for sure. It is deployed along the borders. Maybe there are isolated cases of the use of the Special Operations Forces, separate groups of Belarusians. This is not ruled out. However, the Belarusian army at the level of formations does not take part in the armed aggression against Ukraine. Nevertheless, the territory of Belarus is used, to put it mildly, to the fullest – troops come from there, the entire system of military airfields is used to bombard Ukraine, and anti-tactical missiles are launched. This is true," the adviser to the head of the President's Office said.

He suggested that the resignation of Gulevich and the corresponding sentiments among the Belarusian military "may be related to the fact that the Russian leadership is pressing and framing the Belarusian army and the Belarusian people." "Because we saw Russian tanks in the direction of Kyiv from the north-west, with Belarusian flags at the beginning of the conflict," Arestovych said.

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