Lukashenko in Moscow today – He will meet with Putin

Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko landed in Moscow on Friday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which Minsk said could determine how long Russian troops would remain in the former Soviet republic, according to Reuters. .

Russia’s joint military exercises in Belarus, which run until Sunday, have fueled Western fears that Moscow could launch an attack on Ukraine, which borders both countries.

Russia denies any plan to invade. Both Minsk and Moscow have stated that Russian forces – the largest deployment of Moscow in Belarus since the end of the Cold War, according to NATO – will withdraw when the exercises are over.

But Lukashenko’s rhetoric has since opened the possibility that the forces, which are part of a wider Russian development in northern, eastern and southern Ukraine, could actually remain longer.

“Whatever decision we make tomorrow, it will be so,” Lukashenko told the BelTa news agency on Thursday.

“If we make a decision, we will remove (the force) within 24 hours. If we decide a month, they will stay for a month. The armed forces will remain as needed,” Lukashenko said.

He also said that Moscow and Minsk had agreed that Russia would leave ammunition in Belarus and that Minsk could buy military equipment from Russia or simply receive it as a “gift”.

Military high schools showed the tightening of Moscow’s ties with Minsk.

For years, Lukashenko opposed the idea of ​​hosting a permanent Russian military base. But since Putin backed him politically and financially to help him overcome the massive opposition protests in 2020, he has lost much of his image as an autonomous leader.

Franak Viacorka, an adviser to Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, described Lukashenko as a Moscow subordinate. “We see Lukashenko surrendering to Belarusian rule,” he wrote on Facebook.