- Belarusian dictator Lukashenko has expressed opposition to the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
- It would be “unacceptable because it is right next to us,” he told the AP.
- Mr Lukashenko, who relies on Putin to stay in power, also said he believes the war in Ukraine has dragged on.
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Belarus’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko said in a new interview with the Associated Press that he was against the use of nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine.
Some Western officials and experts have expressed concern that Russian President Vladimir Putin could use weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine if he becomes desperate enough as Russia’s military struggles to achieve great success in the war.
Mr Putin, considered a puppet of Putin, said the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be “unacceptable because it is right next to us – we are not overseas like the United States”.
“This is also unacceptable because it could bring down our globe, flying out of orbit to who knows where,” he added. “Whether Russia is capable or not is a question you should ask the Russian leadership.
Russia has made nuclear threats since the start of the war in Ukraine. Putin said he was putting Russia’s nuclear deterrence force on high alert in late February, and last month Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that the threat of nuclear war should not be underestimated.
A senior U.S. defense official told reporters last week that the United States did not appreciate the threat of Russians using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, according to Reuters. But CIA Director William Burns also said in mid-April that the United States could not “take lightly the threat posed by a potential use of tactical nuclear weapons” by Putin in Ukraine.
Mr Lukashenko also appears eager to express the length of the conflict in Ukraine, which Belarus has helped Russia carry out in an interview with the Associated Press.
“I am not immersed in this problem enough to say whether it is going according to plan, as the Russians say, or how I feel,” said the Belarusian dictator, adding: “I want to emphasize once again: I feel this is how the operation dragged on.”
Mr Lukashenko has been Putin’s closest ally amid Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine, and under his leadership Belarus has served as a launching pad for the conflict. Russian troops in Belarus have been allowed to cross its border with Ukraine, and wounded Russian soldiers have been treated in Belarusian hospitals. After the defeat of the battlefield outside Kyiv, the damaged Russian forces withdrew to Belarus to reorganize. As a result, Belarus has been subject to Western sanctions.
“We see Belarus as deeply connected to the outcome in Ukraine. This is one of the many reasons why what is happening in Ukraine will resonate far beyond its own borders,” Julie Fisher, the US special envoy for Belarus, told Foreign Policy, adding, “This is a direct and immediate link when it comes to Belarus.”
In 2020, Lukashenko faced mass protests after winning a sixth presidential term in elections that much of the international community considers rigged. Lukashenko relies heavily on the Kremlin’s economic and political support to stay in power, and Moscow offered that support because it sees Belarus as an important barrier between Russia and the EU and NATO.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Lukashenko called Putin his “big brother”, boasting that the Russian leader has no “closer, more open or friendly relations with any of the world’s leaders except the President of Belarus.”
He also blamed the United States for the conflict in Ukraine, although Russia started the war without being attacked. “The United States wants to seize the moment, bind its allies to itself and drown Russia in the war with Ukraine. “Their goal is to settle Russia and then China,” Lukashenko said.
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