A key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has begun hinting at what could come next in Russia’s war, and it doesn’t sound good.
Lukashenko said this weekend that he thought it was time for Europe to face a “moral cleansing”.
“The time has come for forgetful Europe to give itself a moral cleansing,” Lukashenko said, without going into more detail about what that would mean, according to BelTA.
Lukashenko mentioned that efforts to fight the Second World War Nazis, or what Russia calls the “Great Patriotic War,” are not yet over — repeating Russia’s erroneous claims that they are waging war in Ukraine to “denazify” or to fight the Nazis in Ukraine.
It is “a war to destroy the Slavic ethnicity, cultures and entire nations. Today we often say that this war is not over yet,” Lukashenko said. “It’s not over yet, because not everyone who participated in the monstrous facts of this war… has been punished. This war is not over yet, because we are again, as at the front, protecting our historical memory.
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His plans to “cleanse” Europe coincide with Lukashenko’s claims that Ukraine is escalating tensions with Belarus; Lukashenko said on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had fired missiles at Belarus, which he said the Belarusian military had successfully shot down.
“We are being provoked,” he said, without providing evidence that the missiles were indeed aimed at Belarusian military posts. “They are still trying to drag us into the war in Ukraine. The goal is to get rid of both Russia and Belarus in one fell swoop.
His troubling remarks come just weeks after Belarusian authorities announced the government would form a new military unit on the border with Ukraine, form a people’s militia and begin new exercises to prepare for war – moves that have raised concerns among US officials that Putin could to be relying on Lukashenko to act in Ukraine.
Lukashenko warned this weekend that the military forces of Belarus and Russia were united and that they had formed a single army.
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“We are the only country that supports the Russians in this fight. Those who reproach us, did you not know that we have the closest alliance with the Russian Federation? With a country with which we are building a united, strong, independent country,” Lukashenko said, adding that he had long ago decided that Belarus would participate in the war. We were and will be together with fraternal Russia.
The increase in belligerent statements coming from Belarus comes just days after Lukashenko and Putin met at the Constantine Palace in St Petersburg, where Putin suggested the two countries were becoming closer than ever.
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However, Lukashenko tried to retract some of his statements and tried to convey that Belarus has no intention of attacking Ukraine or going to war with Ukraine.
“We don’t need this war,” he said.
Ukrainian intelligence officials have sought to downplay Russian efforts to use Belarus, as it did at the start of the war, as a springboard for a further attack on Ukraine as well.
“Count [of Russian troops in Belarus] is insignificant, absolutely small,” Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said, according to Pravda.
Budanov suggested that there was no immediate concern that Belarus would invade Ukraine.
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