Lukashenko: Putin didn’t pressure Belarus to enter Ukraine war, but asked for ‘cover’

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday Russian President Vladimir Putin was not pressuring Belarus into taking part in the war on Ukraine.

“To involve Belarus… what will that give? Nothing,” said the close ally of Putin, Lukashenko.

However, he said that Putin asked him to “cover him” should something happen. The Belarusian President made a statement at that time that “we do not get involved in this conflict, we can do little to help, Russia can cope with anyone anyway, but we will not allow Russians to be shot in the back. This was due to a request by Putin, ‘cover me, please.’ He was most likely afraid of a stab in the back from the West,” state news agency TASS cited him as saying.

He said the Ukraine war was “avoidable”: “At any point in time. It can be stopped now and it could have been avoided then,” according to the Belarusian Telegraph Agency (BelTA).

He claimed that Ukraine and Belarus had always enjoyed good relations, however. Kyiv turned against Minsk: “We are accused of contributing to the start of the war here. No, the warfare was already underway. You started it. The Ukrainians started this warfare against Belarus. Economic warfare first of all. You have declared a blockade on us in the southern direction. You closed the sky to our planes even before the Europeans did. You did not let our goods through. You arrested thousands of wagons with mineral fertilizers that we loaded here in the port of Odessa.”

Regarding discussions to end the war, Lukashenko said: “Negotiations should begin without preconditions. This is a classic of any diplomacy, I think so. Sit down at the negotiating table and discuss everything – Crimea, Kherson, Zaporozhye, Donetsk and Luhansk. Everything should be discussed there. We sit down and develop an agenda.”

He believed that relations between Russia and Ukraine could be improved in the future: “I always give an example: do you remember what the Nazis did in our territories, the same Bandera – Khatyn and so on? But the wounds healed. The Soviet Union had good relations with Germany. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, both Ukraine and Belarus built relations with Germany. Why don't we build it now? We'll build it, but we have to go towards it. If we talk, but we don't go towards it, we are unlikely to do anything. And the first step is to sit down at the negotiating table.”

Lukashenko warned that Ukraine may end up losing all of its territories if it continued hostilities. “We need to take the first step. And the first step is peace, we must go towards peace… Fighting for these territories, you will lose these ones.” He added that Ukraine can fight for the territories it considers its own, but “a different method must be chosen.”

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