KYIV, Ukraine — As Ukrainian forces battle Russian attacks along the 600-mile front line and warn of an imminent large-scale missile bombardment, Kyiv is also casting an anxious eye on Russian threats via Belarus and Moldova that officials say pose minimal immediate risks but cannot be ignored.
While military analysts have expressed doubt about Russia’s ability to open and sustain a new front in the war, Ukrainian and Western officials have warned that Moscow could try and divert Ukrainian resources through feints and deceptions, which could come from anywhere.
This week, Ukraine deployed more troops to its border with Moldova, and the Ukrainian military has in recent months increased military drills near its border with Belarus and in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
Ukrainian officials and military analysts have said that there is no evidence suggesting Russian forces are planning a ground assault from Belarus, a steadfast Kremlin ally that shares a 665-mile border with Ukraine. But military activity there has been a constant source of concern.
The country’s president, who met with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia last week, allowed Russian forces to use Belarus as a staging ground for the invasion, and Moscow uses the country as a site to train soldiers and ferry supplies.
Ukrainian officials are also grappling with what they say are Russian efforts to engulf Moldova in the war. Wedged between Romania and Ukraine, Moldova is one of Europe’s poorest nations and is riven by a Russia-supported breakaway republic, Transnistria.
In the spring, before Moscow suffered a string of humiliating battlefield defeats, a Russian general suggested that Moscow’s troops might charge up the Black Sea coast to rescue what he called oppressed Transnistrians.
And this month, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine had intercepted “a detailed Russian plan to destroy the political situation in Moldova.” That country’s pro-Western president, Maia Sandu, said the plot, for which she offered no evidence, involved foreign actors “with military background, camouflaged in civilian clothes, to undertake violent actions, attacks on state institutions and taking hostages.”
Moldova’s pro-Russian opposition politicians and others have tried to capitalize on economic discontent in the country by stirring weekly protests demanding Ms. Sandu’s resignation, sometimes paying them to attend.
The main thrust of Moscow’s offensive operations remain in eastern and southern Ukraine, where Russian forces are trying to break through Ukrainian defenses in five directions, though it has so far failed to score a breakthrough.
“Despite all the pressure on our forces, the front line has not changed,” Mr. Zelensky said in a late night address on Tuesday.
