Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said that he deployed nearly a third of Belarus’ armed forces to its border with Ukraine earlier this summer following a buildup of Kyiv’s troops.
Lukashenko, a staunch ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that Ukraine maintains more than 120,000 soldiers on its northern border with Belarus as they believe “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin will attack again from Belarusian territory.”
“Seeing their aggressive policies, we introduced and stationed our forces along the whole border at strategic spots to provide defense in the event of a war,” he said in an interview with Rossiya TV channel, according to the Belarusian state news agency BelTA.
“Moreover, special forces units like Alpha, Almaz, and others—the most well-trained—are operating there, doing their jobs.”
Lukashenko claimed that tensions escalated in late June when preparations got underway for Belarus’ Independence Day celebrations in the capital Minsk. A large number of aircraft, military equipment and troops were transferred within Belarus and from Russia.
“It is clear that they saw the movement to us, and the Americans give them all the information. And they thought that, as they said, ‘Putin will attack again from the territory of Belarus,’ from Gomel, as it was at the beginning of the special military operation. And they began to transfer 120,000 servicemen,” he said.
“In response, I was forced to transfer almost a third of the army to strengthen what was there.”
Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik/Kremlin/AP
He added that Belarus managed to de-escalate the situation after discussing the matter via a communication channel it maintains with Ukraine’s special services. “We asked: ‘Why are you doing this?’ They honestly told us: ‘You are going to attack us with the Russians near Gomel.’ We had no such goal.”
He said that a certain number troops have been removed on both sides, but added that Belarusian soldiers would remain along its border with Ukraine. “It is like death for us to remove our troops from the border with Ukraine. The war is ongoing,” he said.
However, Andriy Demchenko, a spokesman for the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, reported that Belarusian troops and equipment had never increased near the border.
“The situation on the border with the Republic of Belarus remains unchanged. As you can see, Lukashenko’s rhetoric is consistent, exacerbating the situation at regular intervals to appease the terrorist country,” he said in a statement to the Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda.
“We have not seen an increase in the equipment or manpower of Belarusian units near our border.”
Separately, Lukashenko also said in the interview that there are “no red lines” on the use of nuclear weapons. “Belarus will use nuclear weapons if the enemy crosses the border of the union state. There will be no red lines, the answer will be instant,” he said.
This is not the first time that Lukashenko has made a threat of this kind. He previously claimed that he had “no red lines” in July this year, amid growing tensions along Ukraine’s border with Belarus.
Speaking then, he said: “I guarantee that we will not allow any clashes on the border with Ukraine. There will be none, we do not need them. But Ukraine does not need them even more in connection with the events that are unfolding on their battlefield.”
