The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine dismissed accusations of Ukraine's participation in the incident on the Machulishchy airfield voiced by Alexander Lukashenko, self-proclaimed President of Belarus, calling it "an act of impotence". 

"We categorically reject Alexander Lukashenko’s insinuations in regards to Ukraine’s alleged participation in the events on the Machulishchy airfield. 

It is evident that it is yet another attempt to create a phoney threat posed by Ukraine in order to justify his [Lukashenko’s – ed.] support of Russian aggression…

Lukashenko has also allowed himself a gross personal rebuke of the President of Ukraine. We would not leave this act of impotence unanswered,"  Oleh Nikolenko, spokesman of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote on Facebook.

Nikolenko has called to search for threats in Russia as opposed to Ukraine, as it uses all the means to "try to involve Belarus in the war even more, stripping it of its independence and sovereignty".

The self-proclaimed President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has said that Belarus had detained an alleged "terrorist of the Ukrainian secret services" and his accomplices, who were "involved in an attempted sabotage of an A-50 aircraft at the Machulishchy airfield". 

On 26 February, explosions occurred at the Machulishchy airbase in Belarus in the morning. Later, there was information that a Russian A-50 military aircraft was damaged.

Alexander Azarov, Head of the BYPOL initiative, reported that Belarusian partisans were involved in sabotage at the Machulishchy airbase in Belarus. According to Azarov, the participants of the alleged sabotage in Machulishchy had left Belarus and are now safe.

After the explosion, the entourage of the self-proclaimed president of Belarus claimed that the A-50 was fine and posted allegedly "fresh videos", although the military monitoring media outlet Belaruski Hajun reported that the Russian aircraft flew to Taganrog, Russia, for repairs.

Andrii Yusov, representative of Ukraine's Defence Intelligence, said that Russia cannot currently produce A-50 AWACS aircraft, one of which was probably damaged at the Belarusian Machulishchy airbase.