Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin gave him a heads-up that Moscow was about to invade neighboring Ukraine and promised Russian forces would help defend Belarus against any blowback from the operation.
But the authoritarian Belarus leader also denounced as “scumbags” those behind reports that Belarusian troops were also part of the invading force, insisting, “Our troops are not there.”
Mr. Lukashenko’s role in the conflict is likely to be heavily scrutinized in the coming days, as he allowed a massive build-up of Russian forces in his country in the weeks before the attack and because a major prong of the Russian offensive into Ukraine came through Belarusian territory.
Russian troops and heavy weaponry were in place along the Belarus-Ukraine border for ten days of “joint exercises” earlier this month. Both Minsk and Moscow said the Russian troops would go home when the exercises were over and ridiculed suggestions that they would be part of an assembling Russian invasion force.
Meeting with his military leaders Thursday morning, Mr. Lukashenko also did not categorically rule out a role for his forces in the fighting, according to an account in the official BelTA news agency.
“We are not going to get involved in the war. Secondly, no one has asked us about it,” he said. “… But I emphasize once again: if necessary, we will provide all possible support” to “our ally, Russia.”
The Belarusian leader, who has faced growing Western sanctions and isolation over his increasingly authoritarian rule, gave a few more details about the fraught moments before Russian forces launched a pre-dawn assault on Kyiv and Ukrainian cities around the country.
He said he spoke by phone with Mr. Putin at 5 a.m. Minsk time, getting briefed on what the Russian president has called a “special military operation.”
“According to [Mr. Putin], the purpose of the operation is clear: to stop the genocide of the people in Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast,” Mr. Lukashenko recalled, citing the two separatist enclaves that Russia officially recognized as independent earlier this week.
He said Mr. Putin offered a binding promise that Russia would come to Belarus’s aid if it were attacked.
“That is what he said, verbatim: I promise you and swear to you that any attack on Belarus will mean an attack on Russia,” Mr. Lukashenko said.
He also offered the first explanation of why Russian forces had remained in his country after their promised departure date, saying it was his idea that they stay longer to protect Belarus from Ukraine.
He repeated the Kremlin’s line that it was the Ukrainian government that had stepped up military pressure on the separatist enclaves and on Russian troops massing on its border, a claim widely rejected by Ukraine, the U.S. and its allies.
“I am not ashamed to say that we were not ready to protect the southern border in this situation, since Ukrainian [military units] advanced to the border and began to conduct maneuvers there,” Mr. Lukashenko said. “We saw this, but we never had troops there. Therefore, I suggested leaving a small part [of Russian troops] there, at the southern border, until we replace them with our armed forces.”
Mr. Putin, he claimed, agreed to the suggestion, saying it could prompt the Ukrainian government to negotiate a diplomatic settlement to the crisis.
• David R. Sands can be reached at dsands@washingtontimes.com.
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