Beavers have unwittingly bolstered Ukraine’s defences against a possible new Russian invasion from Belarus.
A Ukrainian military spokesman credited the dam-building creatures for miles of thick mud, waterlogged fields and burst river banks in the northwest of the country, which have created a significant obstacle for any new front in Moscow’s invasion.
Kyiv officials have warned of a new looming Russian offensive, with Belarus to the north named as one possible staging post for the assault.
However, Serhiy Khominskyi, a spokesman for the Volyn territorial defence brigade, said that the beavers had become their newest, and most unlikely, allies against any such action by making the ground marshy and impassable.
“When they build their dams, normally people destroy them, but they didn’t this year because of the war, so now there is water everywhere,” he told Reuters.
His brigade is just one of hundreds made up of local recruits guarding the thick forests and swampy terrain of Ukraine’s borderlands with Belarus.
The swampy conditions created by the beavers’ dams give the Ukrainian forces an advantage and time to prepare for a potential new offensive, the Volyn brigade believed.
Viktor Rokun, one of its deputy commanders, said: “On your own land, everything will help you to defend it – the landscape, lots of rivers, which have burst their banks this year.”
Konrad Muzyka, the director of Rochan Consulting, said Volyn would be a “horrible place to conduct an offensive operation”.
“There are many watercourses there, very few roads,” he said.
“This makes it easy for Ukrainian forces to channel the movement of Russian forces into specific areas where they would be shelled by artillery.”
Russia and Belarus, its only remaining European ally, have bolstered their presence in the region, prompting fears of a new attack.
Next week, they will hold joint aviation drills, further ramping up tensions in the area.
Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian dictator, allowed Moscow to use his country as a launchpad last February as part of the Russian forces’ failed attempt to capture Kyiv.
On Friday, a Russian foreign ministry official said that Belarus could join its war effort if Ukraine opts to “invade” either country.
Aleksey Polishchuk told the Tass news agency: “From a legal point of view, the use of military force by the Kyiv regime or the invasion of the territory of Belarus or Russia by the armed forces of Ukraine are sufficient grounds for a collective response.”