KYIV/ MOSCOW — Russia President Vladimir Putin heads to neighboring Belarus on Monday for talks with Alexander Lukashenko, as Russian troops prepare to conduct exercises there amid nerves in Kyiv that the country could again serve as a base for a renewed assault on Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine is ready for all possible defense scenarios against Moscow and its ally.

“Protecting our border, both with Russia and Belarus — is our constant priority,” Zelensky said after a meeting on Sunday of Ukraine’s top military command. “We are preparing for all possible defense scenarios.”

Officials in Kyiv have warned for months that neighboring Belarus — one of Russia’s closest allies — could join Russian forces and serve again as a launching pad for a new attack to form a second front in the months-long war.

Belarus allowed its territory to be used as a launchpad for Moscow’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, but has not joined the fighting directly. Lukashenko has said repeatedly he has no intention of sending his country’s troops into Ukraine.

The Kremlin describes the Russian president’s trip, his first to Belarus for three and a half years, as a broad “working visit”.

Russian troops that were moved to Belarus in October will conduct battalion tactical exercises, the Russian Interfax news agency reported, citing the Russian Defense Ministry.

Kyiv and surrounding areas came under attack again early on Monday, with the Ukrainian capital’s military administration saying nine Iranian-made Shahed drones were shot down in Kyiv’s airspace.

“Air defense systems are at work in the region,” Oleksiy Kuleba, governor of the Kyiv region said on Telegram. “Stay in shelters and safe places until the alarm is over. Take care of yourself and loved ones.”

Several loud blasts were heard, but it was not immediately clear whether they were air defense systems destroying the drones or drones hitting their targets.

Zelensky on Sunday again called for Western nations to beef up Ukraine’s air defenses after weeks of Russian air strikes targeted the country’s energy network as a freezing winter settles in.

The Ukrainian leader said power had been restored to three million more Ukrainians in the past 24 hours following a massive missile attack on electricity infrastructure on Friday that killed three people and damaged nine power facilities.

That meant nine million Ukrainians had been reconnected over the weekend, he added.

Zelensky told Ukrainians the armed forces were holding firm in the town of Bakhmut — scene of the fiercest fighting in the country for many weeks as Russia attempts to advance in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

“The battlefield in Bakhmut is critical,” he said. “We control the town even though the occupiers are doing everything so that no undamaged wall will remain standing.”

Denis Pushilin, Russian-installed administrator of the portion of the Donetsk region controlled by Moscow, said that Ukrainian forces shelled a hospital in the Donetsk city, killing one person and injuring several others.

The battlefield accounts could not immediately be verified. — Euronews