Ukraine’s ministry of defense claims that after the contested 2020 election in Belarus, the Russians planned to invade. To corroborate this claim the Ukrainian ministry released a newly unearthed document titled “Legend of the plan to regroup units and military units of the 1st tank army in the area of the task”.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said the following in a statement “After the falsification of the presidential election in Belarus, the Russian Federation developed a plan to invade and suppress popular protests – the occupation of Belarus was planned under the pretext of avoiding Russia’s involvement ‘in the European continental region in a regional or large-scale war with NATO member states in the West.”
Fox News reported that Belarus held a presidential election on Sunday, Aug. 9, 2020, with early voting running from Aug. 4 to Aug. 8. The Central Election Commission reported that incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko won the election with just over 80% of the vote. He has won every presidential election since 1994, yet international monitors have condemned three of four of the elections as neither free nor fair.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya on the opposition alleged that she won the election with at least 60% of voters on her side, but that the election was falsified. Her campaign formed a council to allow a transfer of power. She also coordinated protests against the government over its official results.
Since the Russian government is still able to prop up a false President in Belarus and suppress protests domestically they currently have no reason to invade, they have bigger fish to fry. So instead, they launched an invasion into their other neighbor, Ukraine which used to be a piece of the Soviet Union.