เพื่อนปูตินเตือน " ไม่ต้องการทำสงครามกับ NATO " แต่ ...Putin friend warns: "Do not want war with NATO, but .."

 Putin friend warns: "Do not want war with NATO, but .."

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Johan Edgar

PUBLISHED: TODAY 00.46

UPDATED: LESS THAN 3 HOURS AGO

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Belarus's dictator Alexander Lukashenko sees himself as Putin's "little brother".

He now warns NATO that they must do everything possible to prevent a war with Russia.

- Otherwise, the military will react, he says in an interview with AP.

As one of Putin's few allies, Lukashenko, 67, has contributed to the invasion of Ukraine by allowing Russian troops to cross the border from Belarus.

The country's territory has also been used to care for wounded Russian soldiers and to secretly take the dead on to Russia.

The Russian military has completely taken over some cities in Belarus and is cooperating with the country's police and security services to keep the losses in the war secret.

Think the war drags on

In a 90-minute interview with the news agency AP, the dictator says that the war lasted longer than he thought, but that Putin had to act because "Kyiv provoked Russia".

- I am not sufficiently familiar with the problem to say if it goes according to plan, as the Russians claim. But I want to say once again: It feels like the operation is dragging on, he tells AP.

Although Belarus has allowed Russia to use the country for its invading forces, Lukashenko says he "stands for peace."

Alexander Lukashenko.

Alexander Lukashenko.

Photo: Pavel Orlovsky / AP

- We categorically do not accept war. We have done and are doing everything so that there will be no war. Thanks to the undersigned, ie me, negotiations between Russia and Ukraine are underway, the dictator tells AP.

Lukashenko says it would be unacceptable to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine because "it is right near us, we are not on the other side of the sea like the United States".

Sees Putin as his big brother

- It is also unacceptable because it can make the earth fly out of its orbit to who knows where. Whether the Russians are capable of it or not is a question for the Russian leadership, he says.

Few people outside Russia, however, are closer to the Russian leadership and then mainly President Putin than Lukashenko himself.

In the interview with the AP, he calls Putin his "big brother" and says that Belarus is the only country "that stands with Moscow when about fifty countries have joined forces with Ukraine".

Alexander Lukashenko is close to Putin, especially after the 2020 election. He was then accused of widespread electoral fraud in order to remain in office since 1994.

Russia and Putin came to his rescue.

Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir Putin.

Photo: Sergei Gubeyev / AP

Warns NATO of Russian military

When widespread protests erupted, Lukashenko brutally crushed the opposition. Protesters and others have been beaten, imprisoned, killed or forced to flee the country.

Neither the United States, the European Union nor the United Kingdom has recognized Lukashenko as a legitimate president.

The dictator tells the AP that Russia "by definition cannot lose this war". He also says that his friend Putin does not want a direct conflict with NATO, but that it is up to the West to ensure that this does not happen.

- He most likely does not want to see a global confrontation with NATO. Use it, use it and do everything so that it does not happen. "Otherwise, even if Putin does not want it, the military will react," Lukashenko told the Associated Press.

He says the West does not have to worry about Belarus.

- We have not threatened anyone and will not do so. We know who we are against so that triggering any kind of conflict, any kind of war here, is absolutely not in the interest of the Belarusian state. So the West can sleep peacefully, says Lukashenko.

"Biden controls Zelensky"

He accuses Washington of setting fire to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine - and believes that the Ukrainian president is taking orders from the United States.

- Today it is not Zelensky who rules Ukraine - do not take it badly, that is my opinion, maybe I'm wrong. But if Biden wanted to, this would be over within a week, says Lukashenko.

Svjatlana Tsichanouskaja, Belarusian opposition leader in exile, is, as expected, critical of Lukashenko's description of himself as a peacemaker.

She calls him an "assistant attacker" in the war and says he is trying to change the image of himself from "arsonist to firefighter", according to the AP.

Opposition activist Pavel Latushka told the news agency that the dictator's call for peace "seems absurd after more than 600 robots were fired from Belarusian territory and the country served as a platform for attack".

Cheated enemies in the trap

Opposition groups in Belarus have previously accused the regime of trying to deceive citizens who want to fight Putin in a social media trap.

According to the accusations, the state is behind false accounts where they have asked for volunteers who want to participate in the fighting on the side of Ukraine. Those who signed up were later imprisoned, Radio Free Europe states.