With Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, humiliated again and again on the battlefields of Ukraine, he may be preparing to cash in a favour owed to him by one of his closest allies, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.
Last week, many Ukrainians were alarmed by news that Russian and Belarusian troops are training together in the dense forests along their country's northern border.
Mr Lukashenko claimed that his and Putin's men are working as a "single army" prepared to "repel any aggression".
