Lukashenko: Ukraine is a threat to Belarus
At a meeting with the heads of law enforcement agencies, self-proclaimed president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that the policy of the Ukrainian authorities began to threaten the security of Belarus.
"The people are close, the people are related, but the leadership of Ukraine, pursuing an anti-people course, has taken a path to confrontation. We cannot say where they are going, to the West or the East, to the South. It does not matter, it is their business. But their policy is based on confrontation, and for us this is an additional threat that we did not have before," Lukashenka said.
In 2017, Lukashenka said that "the Belarusian-Ukrainian border will never be the border of war," and later joked: "If we come from the north to you, I want some of the military to hear this in Ukraine, then we will come on combine harvesters, tractors, trolleybuses and buses."
However, after Ukraine did not recognize Lukashenka's victory in the 2020 elections, relations with Belarus cooled significantly. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Belarus is now seen as a possible springboard for Russia's invasion from the north.
"Now the situation in Belarus is very dangerous. These are our northern borders. And we understand that Russia and Belarus are constantly talking and agreeing on an important geopolitical and, probably, defense agreements. After that, there may be a really serious influence of Russia and serious coordination and control of the Belarusian armed forces. Then we can look at the risk from the other side," Zelensky said in a recent interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
In June 2021, Lukashenko said that, if necessary, he was ready to let Russian troops into Belarus.