In an interview with the Associated Press, Lukashenko said he did not expect Russia’s invasion of the country to drag on for so long.
Mr Lukashenko has been a longtime ally of the Kremlin and his regime has received financial and political support from the Russian president.
“I am not immersed in this problem enough to say whether it is going according to plan, as the Russians say, or as I feel it,” he told the Independence Palace news agency in Minsk.
“I want to emphasize once again, I have the feeling that this operation has dragged on.”
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However, he stopped criticizing Moscow and said Ukraine was “provoking Russia”.
“We definitely do not accept any war,” he said. “We did and are doing everything to prevent a war.
“My sincere thanks to me, the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia have begun.
Mr Lukashenko also reiterated Moscow’s baseless claim that Kyiv was “not interested” in peace talks.
Russia has deployed forces on Belarusian territory under the pretext of military exercises and then sent them to Ukraine as part of an invasion that began on February 24th.
Mr Lukashenko had previously backed the operation, saying in a meeting with Putin in early March that Ukraine planned to attack Belarus and that Moscow’s offensive had prevented it.
He said he had brought a map to show Putin where the alleged attack was supposed to come from, but did not offer other evidence to support the claim.
Earlier this week, the Belarusian military announced surprise exercises that have sparked unrest in Ukraine. However, Lukashenko denied that the exercises posed a threat.
“We are not threatening anyone and we will not threaten or do so. Besides, we cannot threaten – we know who is opposing us, so to start a conflict, a war here in the West, is absolutely not in the interest of the Belarusian state. So the West can sleep peacefully. “
Mr Lukashenko’s support for the war prompted the West to impose sanctions on Belarus, with Minsk and Moscow warning that they would “jointly oppose any attempt to slow the development of our countries or artificially isolate them from the global economy”.
He said Putin probably “did not want a global confrontation with NATO” despite escalating tensions between Russia and the military alliance.
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