Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Alexander Lukashenko did not pass any messages from Volodymyr Zelensky to Vladimir Putin. According to him, Lukashenko met Putin in Valdai over the weekend, but the meeting was informal and therefore was not covered in detail by state media.
At the same time, the Kremlin spokesman did not directly deny that Lukashenko could serve as a channel of communication between Moscow and Kyiv. Peskov said such existing channels must remain non-public in order to keep functioning, and for that reason he would not answer that question. He also confirmed that Ukraine was on the agenda of the meeting.
Immediately after the talks in Valdai, Lukashenko traveled to China, where he met Chinese President Xi Jinping. Official statements said the sides discussed bilateral relations. After the meeting, China’s Foreign Ministry said Beijing supports Belarus in defending its sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity. Ukraine was not mentioned directly in the official readouts.
Speculation about Lukashenko acting as an intermediary grew after Zelensky said he had sent Russia a new peace proposal. That statement came one day before Lukashenko’s meeting with Putin. A day earlier, the Belarusian leader himself had said he met with Ukrainian representatives in Minsk.
Against that backdrop, relations between Minsk and Kyiv have remained tense in recent weeks. In the spring, Zelensky repeatedly said Russia was trying to draw Belarus deeper into the war. In June, he also demanded the removal of relay devices from the Belarusian-Russian border, saying they were being used to guide Russian strikes. Minsk did not respond publicly, and later Zelensky said the devices had stopped working.
Putin, for his part, again said that Russia intends to continue the war until the “goals of the special military operation” are achieved.
In remarks to VGTRK correspondent Pavel Zarubin, the Russian president also said he rejected Ukraine’s proposal for a mutual halt to strikes on targets far from the front line, effectively including oil refineries in major Russian cities. He said he refused because Russia’s strikes deep inside Ukraine are, in his words, even more powerful, painful, and destructive.