Ukrainian troops have mined every road and strip of forest on the border with Belarus, the U.S. newspaper the Washington Post reported Thursday.

According to the head of the strategic communications department of the joint forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Yevgeni Silkin, the Ukrainian army “mined every road and every strip of forest." He added that most of the border between Ukraine, Belarus and Russia had also been mined. “We will not be friends with Russia or Belarus in the near future,” Silkin said.

Earlier, Belarusian border guards reported that the Ukrainian military had begun building a reinforced concrete fence on the common border, over which barbed wire of the "Egoza" type was placed in two rows. The fence, erected on the Ukrainian side at a distance of 10-15 meters from the state border of Belarus, is 3 to 4 meters high, but there are gaps in the fence of the size of about two or three spans. It was explained that the fence is located on the Ukrainian border territory near the settlement of Dolsk, the area is also equipped with a moat and observation towers. The head of the operational and analytical department of the State Border Committee of Belarus Dmitry Lyubkin called the erection of a fence on the border an expensive and useless measure. The U.S. TV channel NBC also reported that Ukrainian troops were reinforcing fortifications on the border with Belarus.