Lukashenko: ‘The end of the war depends on Ukraine’

The war in Ukraine will only end if Kyiv accepts its losses and negotiates with Russia, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said today in an exclusive interview with AFP.

“Everything depends on Ukraine, at the moment, the peculiarity of the moment is that the war can end in better conditions, acceptable to Ukraine, which must sit at the negotiating table, agree never to threaten Russia” , he emphasized.

According to the Belarusian president, who lent its territory to the Russian army to attack Ukraine, it is Kyiv that must accept concessions and go to negotiations, which are the only way out of the conflict.

Ukraine must agree to “never have on its soil weapons that threaten Russia.”

As he stated, the term “de-Naziization” used by Russia, regarding its military goals in Ukraine, “is a philosophy. Most importantly, it is the security of Russia.”

Lukashenko believes that otherwise, things could deteriorate further, recalling that Putin has warned that his military is not yet fully engaged in Ukraine.

“The war that is going on there is not one that Russia could fight,” he said, referring to “terrifying” weapons that Russia has not used.

According to Lukashenko, Ukraine must accept that the areas occupied by Russia in the east and south of the country have been lost.

“This is no longer being discussed, it could have been discussed in February, March,” he stressed.

Finally, Lukashenko blamed the West for this war, believing that the threat to Russia was such that Moscow had to attack its neighbor.

He said the conflict could have been avoided if Western countries had given Putin “the security guarantees he asked for”, namely the withdrawal of the Alliance on the 1997 border and an end to the West’s rapprochement with Ukraine, which Russia sees as threatening.

“Why didn’t you give these guarantees? That means you wanted the war,” he stressed.

The “cliff of nuclear war”

The West, Ukraine and Russia must end the conflict to avoid the “cliff” of “nuclear war”, said Lukashenko, 67, a staunch ally of Moscow.

“Come on, let’s stop. We must not go any further. Any further, is the precipice. Any further, is nuclear war. This must not go there,” he said, calling for “an end to this chaos, the operation and the war in Ukraine”.

The West wanted a conflict with Russia and “triggered the war in Ukraine”. “We have seen the causes of this war, the reason is that if Russia had not preceded NATO, you (the West) would have organized and hit her,” he insisted, “you caused it and you are prolonging this war.”

Belarus is indeed authoritarian but has no political prisoners, said Lukashenko, who has been sanctioned by the West for his country’s crackdown.

“Yes, our system is tougher, I don’t exclude the word authoritarian, but it is not a dictatorship,” he stressed.

“You say we have hundreds of people in prison. But if we are talking about this supposed opposition that you mention, it has nothing to do with the opposition. These are people who spoke out against the state, not against the power, but against the state, against their own people,” Lukashenko said.

He had been questioned in relation to the hundreds of dissidents, union members, journalists and ordinary protesters for their role in the mass protests against his re-election in August 2020.

As he stated, he did not suppress an opposition movement, but a conspiracy against his country, which he fueled. The persons in prison were financed from abroad, all of them from Poland and Lithuania,” he said.

“And what do you want me to look on calmly? As president, my main responsibility is to defend the sovereignty and independence of the state,” Lukashenko insisted.

The head of the Belarusian state also estimated that the West wanted to break up Belarus in 2020 so that they could then take over Russia.

“You wanted to break up Belarus to build a belt from the Black Sea to the Baltic and be on Moscow’s doorstep,” he stressed.

Two French César cannons in the hands of Moscow

Finally, the Belarusian president said that Russia managed to get its hands on two of the Caesar cannons that France handed over to Ukraine, saying they had been sold to Moscow.

France has already delivered 12 of these highly advanced systems and another six are on their way to Ukraine.

“Russia knows how you deliver your Caesars there, and once they arrive, they will be covered by (Russian) high-precision weapons.

Think about whether it’s worth it,” he said during the interview from the Palace of Independence in Minsk.

“And those that will arrive, they will sell them to Russia. Do you know, no, that two Caesar systems were sold by the Ukrainian authorities to Russia? In Russia, they have already been disassembled in a tank factory, and there they see what can be used. This is a fact,” Lukashenko said.

These statements cannot be independently verified.

Source: RES-MPE