Alexander Lukashenko said that representatives of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had recently met with him in Minsk. He said this during a meeting with Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov, who was visiting Belarus.
“Representatives of Zelensky were here recently. I told them directly: pass this on to your president. If he thinks he can speak to us like this and drag us into the war, then he must understand that the nature of the war would change instantly. It would be a completely different war.”
According to Lukashenko, the Belarusian side later received a response indicating that the Ukrainian president and his representatives understood this. He said that for this reason, the sides should negotiate.
Lukashenko also said there was “no need to kick up dust, no need to shout, no need to try to hit someone in the face in the Russian manner,” and that everyone should act “humanely.”
He also stressed that, in his words, Belarus cannot be drawn into the war. Lukashenko said Belarusians do not want to fight Ukrainians and that, on the other side, there are mainly territorial forces. At the same time, he added that Minsk would stand alongside Russia in any situation.
Earlier statements
In mid-April, Zelensky said military activity in Belarus had increased and suggested that Russia might try to pull Belarus into the war against Ukraine. In June, The Wall Street Journal, citing sources, reported that Moscow had stepped up pressure on Minsk this year, including by seeking to use Belarusian territory to expand strikes on Ukraine.
On June 19, Zelensky demanded that Lukashenko remove relay transmitters along the Belarus-Ukraine border which, he said, had been used to help guide Russian strikes. He said that if this was not done within a week, Ukraine would remove them itself. Lukashenko did not comment publicly on those remarks, and on June 24, Zelensky said the transmitters on the border had stopped operating.