COLUMN: Zelensky cuts Belarus drone relays — the most silent of victories

Introduction: an ultimatum that worked without making noise

On June 19, Zelensky drew a line

There are moments in this war where you witness something that resembles diplomatic genius exercised under pressure. On June 19, 2026, Volodymyr Zelensky issued a rare, precise, and frankly audacious ultimatum: Alexander Lukashenko had one week to shut down the four Russian drone relay stations installed on Belarusian territory — or Ukraine would do it itself. "I think one week will be enough. If he doesn't do that, we will" — the sentence is simple, direct, and carries a real threat.

Three days later, on June 22, 2026, the relays were no longer functioning. Zelensky confirmed it at a press conference: "Whether they were dismantled or not, I honestly don't know. But we're working on it. The fact is that the relayers don't work for now." Al Jazeera, which covered the story in depth in an article published on June 29, 2026, described this episode as Ukraine's "most silent victory" over Russia.

Towers that enabled strikes on western Ukraine

These four relay stations were not simple civilian communication towers repurposed for other uses. They had been installed by Moscow on Belarusian territory to allow Russian drone operators to extend the range of their Shahed/Geran drones well beyond their nominal capabilities. These relays allowed the drones to exchange signals with each other and fly deep into western Ukraine — regions that, without these stations, would have been out of range of certain strike vectors.

The border between Ukraine and Belarus stretches 1,084 kilometers, running largely through marshland and some of the densest forests in Europe. This particular geography made the relays all the more valuable to Russia: entire regions of western Ukraine — Volyn, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Kyiv itself — were threatened from the north via Belarus.

The relays: technology, location, operational impact

What these stations made technically possible

To understand what these relays represented operationally, you need to grasp a basic principle of modern drone warfare: the Shahed-136 and its Russian derivatives (Geran-2) are not pure satellite-guided drones. Their accuracy depends on a combination of inertial navigation, GPS/GLONASS data, and in certain configurations, inter-drone signal exchanges — what is called swarm communication. The relay stations amplified and extended these communications, increasing effective operational range.

The four stations were located in the Brest and Gomel regions — in western and southeastern Belarus respectively — exactly the zones from which drone trajectories toward western Ukraine originated. The location is not accidental: this is military infrastructure disguised as civilian infrastructure (repurposed cellular communication towers), deliberately installed by Russia on the soil of a third state — Lukashenko's Belarus — which provided cover for these operations against Ukraine.

The measurable impact on drone attacks

According to data collected by the publication Flagstock and reported by Al Jazeera, after the relays were deactivated on June 22, the last Russian drone to cross the Belarusian-Ukrainian border did so on a Sunday — and since then, none have been detected on that route. Residents of the border regions confirmed this observation. This change is direct and measurable: the shutdown of the relays had an immediate and verifiable effect on the volume of drone strikes transiting through Belarus.

For the cities of western Ukraine — Lviv, Ternopil, Volyn — which were most exposed to Belarusian flight paths, this change represents a concrete reduction in aerial threat. These regions had seen the frequency of air raid alerts increase since 2023 with the multiplication of long-range drone strikes routing via the north. Their deactivation is a measurable defensive victory.

Lukashenko: between fear of Moscow and the reality of a changed balance of power

A man caught in a structural trap

Alexander Lukashenko has been in a structurally impossible position since 2020: he needs Putin to survive politically (the 2020–2021 crackdown was only made possible by Russian backing), but he has no interest in being pulled into a total war against Ukraine that would destroy his country and probably his regime. His rhetoric is bellicose — he threatened a "war of an entirely different quality" if Zelensky kept pressing him — but his actions are those of a man calculating his risks.

The relay deactivation, three days before the ultimatum expired, is precisely that calculation. Lukashenko chose to frame this gesture as an act of peace on his own initiative, while trying to reassure Moscow that he would remain loyal. The formula is clever but fragile: neither Kyiv believes in his good faith, nor can Moscow be satisfied to see its infrastructure dismantled on the soil of its closest ally.

The Russian reaction: reading between the lines of silence

Russia did not publicly comment on the relay deactivation. That silence is revealing. Moscow finds itself in an embarrassing position: its military infrastructure installed on its main ally's territory was dismantled under pressure from a country it is supposed to be in the process of defeating. This is a demonstration that Ukraine, even in a state of war, can project diplomatic and psychological influence beyond its borders.

Volodymyr Fesenko, director of the Penta think tank in Kyiv, reads the situation without ambiguity: "This is a concession to Zelenskyy's ultimatum but not a public one, not an official one. What's significant is that now Ukraine acts from the position of power and Lukashenko has to reckon with it." He adds that Russia "undoubtedly saw it as a manifestation of Lukashenko's weakness" and that it "is not ready to help him, including because it lacks military resources."

The European Commission's position: political validation

The ultimatum recognized as legitimate

The European Commission took a position on June 22, 2026, declaring that Zelensky's ultimatum confirmed "Ukraine's right to self-defense." That position is not trivial. It means that European institutions consider Ukrainian demands regarding foreign infrastructure facilitating attacks on its territory to fall within the international law right to legitimate defense.

This validation is important for Ukraine in its overall diplomatic framework. It establishes a precedent: a state victim of aggression can legitimately demand that a third state cease hosting the aggressor's military infrastructure, under threat of intervention. This is a position that could have repercussions in other situations where third states host — voluntarily or under coercion — elements of the Russian military system.

The significance for the Irish EU presidency

This Ukrainian diplomatic victory comes as Ireland assumed the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union on July 1, 2026 — with an agenda explicitly favorable to advancing Ukrainian accession. The context is that of an Ukraine that, despite the war, continues to advance on several fronts simultaneously: military, diplomatic, and institutional (EU accession negotiations are progressing, with the opening of the first cluster on June 15).

The synchronization between the victory on the Belarusian relays and the EU accession momentum draws the portrait of a country that refuses to be defined solely by its military dimension. Zelensky's Ukraine wants to exist in both dimensions simultaneously: a democracy at war and a serious candidate for European integration. These two dimensions reinforce each other.

The strategic analysis: what this reveals about Russian weakness

Moscow can no longer protect its peripheral networks

The strategic lesson of the Belarusian relay episode is larger than the deactivation of four towers. It reveals that Russia, in 2026, no longer has the capacity to guarantee the integrity of its peripheral military infrastructure — the kind that depends on the cooperation of third states. The fact that Lukashenko could fold without Moscow responding by anything other than silence says something essential: Russia lacks the resources to defend every element of its network.

ISW analysts and field data confirm this reading: in June 2026, the Russian army suffered 39,490 losses to gain just 30.42 km². It is spending all its available resources on the 1,000-kilometer Ukrainian front. Nothing remains to protect supporting infrastructure in Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, or any peripheral zone of its declining empire.

A model for other Ukrainian demands

This success creates a precedent that Ukraine could and should exploit. If the ultimatum worked for the Belarusian relays, it is because it combined three elements: a credible threat (Ukraine's capacity to destroy this infrastructure if it chose to), a precise deadline (which forced a decision), and international validation (the European Commission endorsed the demand).

This model — credible threat + deadline + international validation — could apply to other situations: fuel depots supplying the Russian army from third countries, logistics routes, communications networks. In each case, effectiveness will depend on Ukraine's ability to demonstrate it can actually act if its demand is not met. The credibility of the threat is the cornerstone of the strategy.

The international reaction: between support and caution

Western allies: approval but discretion

No major Western government publicly criticized Zelensky's ultimatum on the Belarusian relays. The European Commission validated it. Capitals — Berlin, Paris, Washington — maintained a silence equivalent to tacit approval. This benevolent silence is itself a form of support: it tells Kyiv it can continue on this path without fear of running into its own allies.

This discretion is also strategic on the Western side: not publicly commenting on the Ukrainian ultimatum avoids creating a diplomatic precedent too visible, which could complicate analogous situations in other contexts. Diplomatic pragmatism is often more effective than a thundering declaration.

Belarus after the relays: what next?

The relay deactivation does not close the Belarusian file in the war. The 1,084 km border remains a vector of pressure for Russia. Drones can cross from Belarusian territory without relays — with reduced range, to be sure, but not zero. Russian troops stationed in Belarus since 2022 remain present, even if their role as a direct threat diminished after the withdrawal from the northern front following the failed encirclement of Kyiv in March 2022.

Lukashenko will continue to navigate between Moscow and the reality of his situation — a regime held up by force, in an exhausted country, alongside a Russian patron that is itself exhausting. Every concession he makes to Kyiv weakens his standing vis-à-vis Putin. Every refusal makes him more vulnerable to growing Ukrainian demands. It is a progressive stranglehold from which there is no clean exit for him.

The humanitarian dimension: cities in western Ukraine breathe easier

Lviv, Volyn, Zhytomyr: a relative reprieve

Behind the strategic analyses lie concrete human realities. The regions of western Ukraine — Lviv, Volyn, Rivne, Zhytomyr — were among those most affected by drone trajectories transiting through Belarus. Nighttime air raid alerts, families in shelters, children who have not slept normally for years. Every night without a drone attack is a real security gain for these populations.

The relay deactivation does not mean the end of attacks on western Ukraine — Russia has other flight paths. But it reduces the potential frequency and density of strikes on these regions. For families living under this threat since 2022, every measurable reduction in pressure is a victory that counts, even if relative, even if temporary.

The economy of fear

There is an economy of fear that Russian loss data does not capture: the economic cost of repeated air raid alerts, the psychological impact on a civilian population that has lived for more than four years under the threat of attacks from the sky. Every air raid alert, even without impact, represents hours of economic activity stopped, days of school disrupted, trauma accumulated in millions of Ukrainian children's minds.

The shutdown of the Belarusian relays reduces part of this pressure on the west of the country. It is a victory that numbers do not tell well, but one that Ukrainians in Lviv or Volyn measure in their daily lives. And it is a victory that Zelensky won without firing a single shot, by speaking in front of a camera on June 19, 2026.

The question of Belarusian disarmament: going further?

Russian troops in Belarus: the next challenge

The relay deactivation raises a question that no one is yet openly voicing but that is taking shape: if Ukraine can obtain the shutdown of Russian infrastructure in Belarus through diplomatic pressure, can it go further? The withdrawal of Russian troops stationed in Belarus since the Zapad 2022 exercises — who never truly left — is an old and legitimate Ukrainian demand. But achieving it would require a level of pressure and a further degraded Russian situation than the current one.

It is too early to know whether the relay precedent can be scaled up to a demand of that magnitude. What is clear is that Zelensky has demonstrated the ability to calibrate his demands precisely — ambitious enough to have an impact, realistic enough to be satisfiable. This calibration is the art of diplomacy at its finest in the context of an armed conflict.

The signal sent to other states in the region

The Belarusian relay episode sends a message to all states on Russia's periphery: hosting Russian military infrastructure now carries concrete, documented risks. Belarus has just experienced that. Countries maintaining ambiguous relationships with Moscow while wanting to avoid direct involvement in the war must integrate this precedent into their calculations.

It is a signal addressed — among others — to certain Central Asian countries that permit the transit of military-use components to Russia despite Western sanctions. The situation is not identical, and Ukraine's leverage over those states is different. But the logic is similar: Ukraine has demonstrated it can mobilize diplomatic pressure and the threat of action to modify the behavior of third-party actors.

Transparency on what we do not know

Partial confirmations, real uncertainties

I must be honest about the limits of what is known in this episode. Zelensky himself said: "Whether they were dismantled or not, I honestly don't know." That formulation says it all: the relays are no longer functioning, but the exact mechanism of their deactivation — physical dismantlement, Belarusian decision, Ukrainian remote action, a combination of all three — remains uncertain. Independent confirmation is difficult for infrastructure that blends in with civilian telecommunications towers.

What is known with certainty: before June 22, 2026, Russian drones regularly transited through Belarus into western Ukraine. After June 22, those trajectories ceased to be observed according to independent tracking data. That is sufficient to speak of a result. The precise mechanism remains partially opaque.

Fesenko's interpretation: caution and clarity

Volodymyr Fesenko from the Penta think tank is the most-cited analyst on this episode, and his formulations deserve to be preserved precisely as he gave them. He speaks of an "indirect attempt at a compromise" by Lukashenko, not a capitulation or a reversal. He says it is a concession to the ultimatum, but "not a public one, not an official one." These nuances matter.

The official Belarusian narrative is that these relays were deactivated solely by Lukashenko's will as part of his peace policy. The Ukrainian narrative is that it is the result of the ultimatum. The operational truth — the relays are offline — is independent of these narratives. What matters for Ukraine is the outcome. The official reasons, each side can dress up as it sees fit.

Zelensky in 2026: the maturity of a war leader turned diplomat

A widening register

Volodymyr Zelensky's image has evolved profoundly since the start of the war. In 2022, he was the symbol of resistance, the man who had stayed in Kyiv when others expected him to flee, the interlocutor addressing the world from the ruins. In 2026, he is still that — but also a head of state conducting precision diplomatic operations: a calibrated ultimatum here, a visit to Dublin there, calls to Washington, trips to Brussels.

The Belarusian relay episode illustrates this widened register. It is not the same as demanding weapons — a demand Zelensky hammered for years. It is using the threat of a potential military action to obtain a diplomatic result without triggering the action. It is active deterrence, a domain traditionally reserved for great powers.

The Zelensky doctrine: never accept the status quo as permanent

If one looks for consistency in Zelensky's actions since 2022, this is it: systematically refusing to let an unfavorable status quo be presented as permanent or inevitable. The Belarusian relays had been there for some time. Other leaders might have considered them a given of the war, an environmental factor that could not be changed. Zelensky chose to challenge them, publicly, with surgical precision.

This doctrine — challenging the status quo, testing the limits of what is possible, calibrating demands to maximize gains — may be his most lasting legacy for Ukraine's post-war diplomacy. Ukraine in 2026 is not the same as in 2022. It has learned to fight, and it has learned to negotiate. These two skills together are formidable.

The lesson for the West: supporting Ukraine means supporting this doctrine too

A partner that takes the initiative

The Belarusian relay episode should change how the West thinks about its support for Ukraine. It is no longer simply a matter of delivering weapons to a country defending itself passively. It is a matter of supporting a state that takes initiatives, that shapes the conditions of the war, that creates diplomatic precedents. This active partnership demands more — more flexibility, more trust in Ukrainian decisions — but it produces more.

Western governments that have held back certain arms deliveries out of escalation fears should reread the story of the Belarusian relays. The feared escalation did not materialize. Calibrated pressure produced a result. The lesson is not that all action is risk-free — it never is. The lesson is that excessive caution also has a cost, and that the credibility of a threat can sometimes achieve what weapons alone cannot.

What the NATO Ankara summit must integrate

The NATO summit scheduled in Ankara on July 7 and 8, 2026 should build on this episode to formulate a more coherent doctrine of support for Ukraine. The Alliance needs a clear answer to the question: how should it respond when third states host Russian military infrastructure? The European Commission has given an answer: it is legitimate self-defense. NATO should formalize that position.

This is all the more important because the war will enter a phase where similar questions will multiply. States that permit the transit of dual-use technologies to Russia, countries that host Russian financial entities under sanctions, territories that serve as logistical platforms for the Russian war effort — each of these cases could benefit from a clear doctrine. The Belarusian relays opened the way.

The media impact: why so little attention?

A victory with no images

One of the paradoxes of this episode is that it received relatively little international media coverage despite its strategic importance. Why? Because there are no images. No explosions, no columns of smoke, no wounded being carried through hospital corridors. Silent cellular towers make poor television. The war of invisible infrastructure is the least-covered, and often the most decisive.

Al Jazeera was an exception, devoting an in-depth article to this episode as early as June 29, 2026. The Guardian covered the context in its daily war briefings. But the level of global attention did not reflect the importance of the event. This is a systemic limitation of war journalism: we cover what we can photograph, not necessarily what matters most.

The war of perceptions: who tells this victory?

This media invisibility has a practical consequence: the victory over the Belarusian relays does not feed the morale of the Ukrainian population as much as it should, and it does not contribute as much as it could to shifting international perception of the balance of power. Victories that go untold are victories half-lost in the war of perceptions.

Zelensky and his communications team are aware of this challenge — they have made war communication a strategic instrument since 2022. But some victories resist spectacular storytelling. The shutdown of four relay towers in Belarus may require historians to be fully appreciated at its true value.

The likely next steps: between consolidation and new challenges

Maintaining pressure on Belarus

The relay success creates a momentum that Ukraine must sustain. Pressure on Lukashenko can continue on other files — Russian truck convoys carrying military equipment, facilities granted to Russian army units on Belarusian territory, airspace used for strike trajectories. Each file will need to be handled with the same calibration: precise demand, defined deadline, credible threat.

But Lukashenko has also shown his limits in this episode. He cannot concede too quickly or too often without his position vis-à-vis Moscow becoming untenable. Russia remains his last-resort protector, even weakened. Ukraine will need to pace its demands so as not to back Lukashenko into a corner where the only exit is hard resistance — which would serve no one.

The risks of an overconfident strategy

The risk of any winning streak is the temptation to overestimate one's own leverage. Ukraine succeeded on the relays because the demand was precise, the threat credible, and the context favorable. These conditions will not always be met. Overly ambitious or poorly calibrated demands could produce refusals that would erode the strategy's credibility.

Prudence recommends consolidating the relay precedent before generalizing it. Documenting the results, formalizing the doctrine with allies, building a clear legal and diplomatic framework. Ukraine won a diplomatic battle. Turning that battle into a durable doctrine requires institutional work over the long haul — less spectacular but equally necessary.

Conclusion: the silence of four towers and the sound of profound change

What this victory means in the long arc of the war

The deactivation of the Belarusian relays on June 22, 2026, three days after Zelensky's ultimatum, is a modest-looking but substantively significant victory. It proves that Ukraine can achieve results without firing, through pressure and credibility. It proves that Russia can no longer protect all elements of its war support network. It proves that Lukashenko, weakened and isolated, now calculates his risks with one eye on what Ukraine can do — not just on what Russia demands.

For the millions of Ukrainians who have lived under drone threat since 2022, every relay switched off is a partial promise of quieter nights. For Zelensky and his diplomats, it is the demonstration that they have new tools in their toolkit. For Putin, it is the sign that his war machine is starting to seize up where he least expected it: in the capitals of his allies.

The quiet hope of a Ukraine learning to win differently

The war of 2026 is not only a war of trenches, drones, and missiles. It is a war of diplomacy, infrastructure, intelligence, and patience. Ukraine is learning to fight it on all these levels simultaneously. The Belarusian relays silent since June 22 are one result of that learning. Not the most spectacular. Perhaps the most promising.

In this long and cruel war, silent victories count as much as filmed battles. Sometimes more. Because they accumulate quietly, they shift the balance without fanfare, and one day — without knowing exactly when the turning point occurred — the balance of power has changed. That may be how this war ends: not through a single decisive battle, but through the accumulation of victories like this one, one by one, in silence.

Final conclusion: strategic victory, universal lesson

What the Belarusian episode teaches about power and its limits

This episode teaches a universal lesson about the nature of power: it is not purely military. It is also the capacity to make an actor bend without firing a shot. Putin's Russia understood this for two decades — it used gas, oil, corruption, and influence networks to extend its grip without an army. Ukraine is learning to use other forms of pressure — calibrated threat, international validation, diplomatic credibility — to unravel those same networks.

This is not a victory over Putin. Not yet. It is a victory over the logic of submission that Russia wanted to impose on the entire region. And in that inverted logic, every actor that retreats under Ukrainian pressure is a signal sent to all the others. The Belarusian relays may have been the least expected front of this war. They have become one of its most revealing theatres.

A Ukraine that dares to ask

Ultimately, what remains from this episode is a simple image: a man who asked a very precise question, set a very precise deadline, and obtained a result. Zelensky has not always won his diplomatic gambles. Some demands have gone unanswered. But in this case, the gamble worked. And in the geography of Ukrainian hope in 2026, this kind of discrete, documented victory counts. It says: this can work. Keep asking.

Ukraine will continue. It has learned that the world will not give it more than it dares to ask for. So it asks. It asks with precision, with credibility, with awareness of its own limits. That is all you can do when you have been fighting for more than four years to survive. And sometimes — not always, but sometimes — it works.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

My positions and my biases

I am Maxime Marquette, a columnist. I am explicitly pro-Ukraine, convinced that Zelensky represents the kind of leadership the free world needs in the face of Putin's authoritarianism. I believe that Lukashenko's Belarus bears responsibility in this war for having facilitated the 2022 invasion. These positions are acknowledged biases that inform my editorial treatment.

The facts I report in this column are drawn from identified sources: Al Jazeera (June 29, 2026), The Guardian (June 26–27, 2026), Kyiv Independent, and United24 Media. The quotes from Zelensky and Fesenko are drawn directly from the Al Jazeera article. I invented no testimonies, no sources, no figures. Where I inferred or interpreted, I marked it as such.

What I do not know and the limits of this column

I do not know with certainty how the relays were deactivated — physical dismantlement, Belarusian decision, Ukrainian remote intervention. Zelensky himself said so. I do not know whether this deactivation is permanent or temporary. I do not know what Moscow's real behind-the-scenes reaction is — we only have public silence. These uncertainties are documented in the text.

My method: report verifiable facts, clearly attribute quotes, explicitly flag inferences as such, and resist the temptation to extrapolate toward conclusions the data does not support. In a war saturated with propaganda from both sides, epistemic rigor is a journalistic act, not moral neutrality.

Sources

Primary sources

Al Jazeera — 'A concession to Zelenskyy's ultimatum': Ukraine's triumph over Belarus — June 29, 2026

Euromaidanpress — Ukraine Daily Review, conflict coverage — June–July 2026

Kyiv Independent — Drone attacks tag, strike coverage — June–July 2026

Secondary sources

The Guardian — Ukraine war briefing, June 26, 2026

The Guardian — Ukraine war briefing, June 27, 2026

United24 Media — Ukraine to receive hundreds of PAC-2 and PAC-3 missiles — 2026